New Delhi:Â Actor-activist Deep Sidhu, accused in the violence at the Red Fort complex in Delhi on Republic Day during a farmers’ tractor rally has been arrested, the police said today.
The Special Cell of Delhi Police was involved in the operation.
“We have arrested the wanted-accused Deep Sidhu,” said Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, DCP Special Cell.
Another co-accused Sukhdev Singh was earlier arrested from Chandigarh.
The police had announced a Rupees 1 lakh reward for leads on Deep Sidhu and three other accused.
Deep Sidhu was accused of fuelling chaos and clashes when a tractor rally by farmers protesting the centre’s three agricultural laws went rogue on January 26, with protesters defying agreed routes and schedules and forcing their way into the Red Fort.
Deep Sidhu, 36, had been posting videos on Facebook defending himself even as teams of the Delhi police’s crime branch hunted for him. The videos were uploaded by his friend abroad, police sources said.
Sidhu on January 31 uploaded a video on his verified Facebook account. In the 15 minute-long video message, titled ‘straight from my soul’, he was seen giving an emotional statement in Punjabi, which loosely translates to: “I am being defamed… I had left my whole life behind, and come here to join the Punjabis in their protest. But now I am being labelled a traitor.”
“All I did was raise a voice for your rights. For so many months, I have been meeting everyone on roads, in tents. Now a single man is being made a traitor,” he said addressing the hundreds of farmers, who have been sitting in protests at Delhi’s borders since November 26 against the three contentious farm laws.
Within two hours of uploading, it was viewed 19,000 times and received 11,000 comments.
Deep Sidhu has been accused by farmer groups of attempting to derail their movement and leading a “conspiracy” against them.
The actor had hit back at the farmers saying, “If I’m being labeled a gaddar (traitor), then all farmer leaders are gaddars.” In one of his videos, he also accused farmer leaders of backtracking on their protests.
Delhi Police filed 44 cases and have arrested 122 people before this. Several farmer union leaders have been named in the police cases.