Jalandhar
A day after visuals of Amritpal and his accomplice Papalpreet sitting on a cart with a Platina motorcycle surfaced, the cart driver said their bike got punctured near Udhowal village and later he dropped them at Mehatpur.
Mehatpur is the place from where the police started chasing Amritpal’s convoy on March 18.
Udhowal is 3km from Bullandpur village gurdwara, where the police conducted a search operation while chasing him. Bullandpur village gurdwara is 10km from Mehatpur.
However, the police claimed that after changing his clothes at Nangal Ambian Gurdwara, Amritpal and Papalpreet fled on a motorcycle and reached Darapur via Nurmahal before abandoning their bike.
“After starting from Nangal Ambian, they reached Udhowal via Parjian village link road where their bike developed a snag. It might be possible that Amritpal unintentionally came back by taking another link road but managed to escape without being noticed,” an official said.
At Udhowal village, Amritpal’s uncle Harjit Singh and driver Harpreet Singh held sarpanch Manpreet Singh’s family hostage for 30 hours.
The cart driver, Lakhbir Singh, said he came to know that he had given lift to Amritpal only after police questioned. “I hardly use phone and didn’t know about Amritpal and his appearance,” he said.
He added that two persons signalled him to stop on the outskirts of Udhowal village as the rear tyre of motorcycle they were riding was flat.
“They asked me to take them to tyre shop. I told them that the shop is nearer to Udhowal village, but they asked me to move towards Mehatpur,” Lakhbir said.
He added that they paid me ₹100 for dropping them to a tyre repair shop at Mehatpur village, 7km from Udhowal.
Darapur village, from where the motorcycle was recovered is situated 27km from Mehatpur.
DIG Swapan Sharma and SSP Swarandeep Singh could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.
