4 min learnAmritsarUp to date: Aug 8, 2026 11:46 AM IST
The switch of Amritsar Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar on Friday following conflicting statements over an alleged ISI-backed terror plot and its alleged hyperlink to the Jantar Mantar protest has generated a political controversy in Punjab.
The sequence of occasions started on August 4, when the Amritsar metropolis police introduced the busting of a cross-border terror module linked to Pakistan’s ISI. Whereas the preliminary official press launch detailed the restoration of weapons and petrol bombs with out mentioning any connection to the protests in New Delhi, an unique interview given by CP Bhullar to information company ANI set off a large controversy.
On August 5, the BJP uploaded video clips of CP Bhullar’s assertion on its social media handles.
The BJP uploaded the police commissioner’s assertion with the caption, “An ISI connection to the Jantar-Mantar protest has come to mild. The police have uncovered this module.”
Within the recording, the police commissioner detailed how international handlers lured locals, together with minors, utilizing digital funds: “They got the duty to carry out reconnaissance on police institutions and safety institutions, and to make movies of them… They had been despatched cash by way of Paytm, and after this, they had been instructed to focus on any personnel from the police or any uniformed power.”
Highlighting the troubling involvement of minors, Bhullar added: “Most people on this module – apart from one – are juveniles, all three of them. And it makes me very unhappy that 15-year-old kids are concerned in such actions… Principally, the module being run by the ISI-backed handler… had additionally despatched them to Jantar Mantar. These eight individuals traveled to Delhi by prepare and returned from there. They had been domestically supplied with supplies for petrol bombs and comparable objects there, however for some purpose, they might not execute any such motion there.”
The BJP shortly weaponised the video, sharing edited extracts to allege a direct hyperlink between ISI-backed terror modules and the demonstrations at Jantar Mantar.
Social media handles
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Because the narrative gained traction throughout nationwide media, the Punjab Police moved swiftly to include the fallout. On August 6, an official spokesperson for the Punjab Police issued an announcement accusing social media handles of selectively trimming video extracts and distorting the context.
The official clarification famous, “Some social media handles have uploaded movies which embrace edited extracts of press convention held by the Commissioner of Police, Amritsar… and have offered the press convention in a fashion that seeks to affiliate Pak ISI-supported terror modules with the Jantar-Mantar protests in New Delhi.”
The state police emphasised that the arrested suspects had been planning to focus on the demonstrators, reasonably than performing in tandem with them: “The press convention of the Commissioner of Police, Amritsar on August 04, 2026, had said that among the arrested individuals had visited Jantar-Mantar, performed reccee and had deliberate to focus on the protesters by way of petrol bombs. No assertion was made that the arrested individuals participated within the protests or that the Jantar-Mantar protesters had any hyperlinks with the module.”
The assertion additional warned that acceptable authorized motion below the Data Know-how Act was being initiated in opposition to these spreading “inaccurate impressions”.
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Regardless of the state authorities’s makes an attempt at injury management, the controversy severely embarrassed the ruling AAP administration. Sources reveal that whereas the AAP management maintained a sympathetic stance towards the Jantar Mantar demonstrators, the BJP actively sought alternatives to discredit the motion. Bhullar’s remarks successfully handed political ammunition to the Opposition, straight undercutting the AAP’s public help for the protest.
Thereafter, the state administration eliminated Bhullar from his place as Amritsar police commissioner.
Reacting to the event, former Union minister of state Ravneet Singh Bittu stated, “The timing of Gurpreet Bhullar’s switch is sure to lift eyebrows. Did his correct revelations concerning the alleged Jantar Mantar plot bother Kejriwal?”
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