Lawyers from Punjab on Thursday met separatist preacher Amritpal Singh and his aides in Dibrugarh Central Jail of Upper Assam.

A government official told The Telegraph that 10 persons, including two lawyers and eight relatives of the arrested persons, reached Dibrugarh on Thursday morning. They began meeting the inmates “one by one” at noon.

However, no immediate family member of Waris Punjab De chief Amritpal was part of the delegation.

In the visiting team were B.S. Sialka, a lawyer and executive member of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), and advocate Simranjeet Singh.

Advocate Singh, after stepping out of the jail around 7pm, showed a one-page letter written by Amritpal. According to him, Amritpal has handed over an authority letter to the legal team about forming a committee of lawyers to decide the next course of legal steps for those arrested or facing legal action in the crackdown by Punjab police.

The committee will decide on the appointment of lawyers on a case-to-case basis.

A Dibrugarh jail source said advocate Singh talked with Amritpal for nearly an hour. “However, the visiting family members were not allowed to meet Amritpal as his family members had not moved any petition to meet him inside the jail,” the official said.

Amritpal and nine of his aides are lodged in the Dibrugarh jail. The first lot of four among the 10 arrested till now were shifted on March 19, a day after the Punjab police launched a statewide crackdown against Waris Punjab De. Amritpal was the last one to have been shifted.