On the run since March 18 after the Punjab Police’s crackdown, pro-Khalistan activist Amritpal Singh on Wednesday released a video statement — his first in 11 days — wherein he tries to woo the Sikh community and Akal Takht.

In the five-minute clip, the fugitive does not give any clue to his whereabouts or why he was evading arrest. “If the government’s intention had been only to arrest me, they could have come to my house and I would have given up…. But the way they deployed thousands of police personnel and laid a cordon, the Almighty came to our rescue,” he said.