Radical preacher Amritpal Singh’s seven associates were on Friday produced before a court here in connection with the attack on the Ajnala police station in 2023 and remanded to police custody till March 25.

The seven were released from the Dibrugarh Central Jail in Assam and re-arrested in another case by the Punjab Police.

All seven detainees were produced before the court in Ajnala here under tight security and sent to four-day police remand, officials said.

Police here sought the remand on various grounds, including to recover some mobile phones and weapons, and to conduct further investigations.

The Punjab government had decided not to reinvoke the NSA at the end of the detention period of Amritpal’s seven associates. Punjab Police had secured their transit remand and after completing the legal transfer process from Dibrugarh Central they were brought to Ajnala.

A 25-member Punjab Police team had been camping in Dibrugarh for the past few days to facilitate the transfer of Singh’s accomplices, who have been imprisoned along with the Waris Punjab De (WPD) leader in Dibrugarh for nearly two years. The seven brought back are Basant Singh of Daulatpura Ucha in Moga, Bhagwant Singh alias Pradhan Mantri Bajeke of village Bajeke in Moga, Gurmeet Singh Gill alias Gurmeet Bukkanwala of village Bukkanwala in Moga, Sarabjeet Singh Kalsi alias Daljeet Singh Kalsi of West Punjabi Bagh in New Delhi, Gurinderpal Singh Aujla alias Guri Aujla of Phagwara, Harjeet Singh alias Chacha of village Jallupur Khera in Amritsar and Kulwant Singh Dhaliwal alias Kulwant Singh of Rauke Kalan in Moga. All of them were released from Dibrugarh Central Jail in batches during the last few days as their detention period in the National Security Act (NSA) expired. Amritpal Singh and his associates have been in Assam’s Dibrugarh jail under the NSA for the past two years.

He had fought the 2024 Lok Sabha polls as an independent and won from the Khadoor Sahib seat. The radical preacher, who styled himself after slain Khalistani militant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, was arrested in Moga’s Rode village on April 23, 2023 following an over a month-long manhunt. The Khalistani sympathiser had escaped the police net in Jalandhar district on March 18, 2023 switching vehicles and changing appearances.