NEW DELHI, July 5: A Sikh separatist and a Kashmiri politician temporarily left jail Friday to be sworn into Indias parliament after both men won resounding victories in last months election from behind bars.
Firebrand preacher Amritpal Singh, 31, was arrested last year after a month-long police manhunt but defeated 26 other candidates to win his seat in Punjab state.
Sheikh Abdul "Engineer" Rashid, a former state legislator in Indian-administered Kashmir arrested on terrorism funding accusations, won his constituency in the disputed Himalayan region by more than 200,000 votes.
Neither man has been convicted of the charges against him, leaving them both still eligible to sit in parliament despite their detention.
Both were briefly bailed from custody to be sworn into the legislature in New Delhi in a private ceremony that barred media access, weeks after their parliamentary colleagues took their own oaths of office.
Singhs mother told reporters that her son had been sworn in.
"I now request the government to release him from jail," she added.
Singh, 31, rose to prominence calling for a separate Sikh homeland known as Khalistan, the struggle for which sparked deadly violence in India in the 1980s and 1990s.
Weeks before his April 2023 arrest, he and armed supporters raided a police station after one of his aides was arrested for assault and attempted kidnapping. —AFP
