'Pursuing idea of splinter groups outside SKM conspiring to deviate from routes'

New Delhi: The Delhi Police have now decided to pursue the angle of whether the alleged conspiracy to deviate from the decided tractor-rally routes on Republic Day and possibly enter Red Fort was hatched by various splinter farmer groups that were not a part of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha, under whose banner the leading farmer unions are protesting.

Sources close to the investigation said that these groups were specifically unhappy with SKM leaders and Delhi Police agreeing on alternate routes for the tractor rally and insisted on deviating from these routes.

This comes after various reports, including ones by Millennium Post had shown that a day before the tractor rally, there were heated discussions among protesters at the borders, with these splinter groups insisting on marching on Outer Ring Road.

Investigators have now said, "Some argument also happened between groups on the night when final routes were decided and we are investigating whether these splinter groups had escalated the argument to plot the march to Red Fort as well. But we are also following leads to check if this plan was set in motion the moment the tractor parade was announced."

It is also being probed whether Iqbal Singh, one of the accused arrested in the Red Fort case, was staying put in a Gurudwara inside the city a day before the parade.

So far the investigation has not found any direct link between Punjabi actor Deep Sidhu, Iqbal Singh and Sukhdev Singh — all held for the Red Fort violence. "One thing is common. They are good orators. They speak fluently for long stretches," one official said.

The police are also trying to figure out how the three — from vastly different backgrounds could have converged at Red Fort. "Among other possibilities, we believe Sidhu could have been attracted to the protests to gain popularity, Iqbal was a deeply religious person and had attached a religious emotion to the movement and Sukhdev was a farmer who truly believed his lands would be taken by corporates if the farm laws remained," sources close to the probe told Millennium Post.

Police have added that they are proceeding very carefully and only on the basis of strong evidence.

In addition to this, the police have found that Sidhu had three different SIM cards active during the violence and after it. After the violence, the location pings were from three different places, which the police are looking into.

And as the police continue to wait for farmer leaders to join the probe, sources said a few lawyers of the leaders the police had summoned had reached out to them. When asked about raids, one official said they are underway at various locations to apprehend other accused in the Republic Day violence cases.

Also, three more people were arrested in the Republic Day violence at Burari, police said on Thursday.