Sikh grenade factory discovered

Press, 12 June 1984, Page 6

Sikh grenade factory discovered

NZPA-Reuter New Delhi Indian security forces discovered a grenade factory outside the Golden Temple in Amritsar. So far their campaign to root out Sikh extremists, who were not among at least 700 killed inside the temple, has encountered stiff resistance. Indian State television said yesterday that the security forces found 100 grenades at the factory and equipment and material to make them, as well as 25 light machine-guns, four kilograms of gold, and cash from inside the temple. A Government spokesman said the Army killed six extremists at the week-end

in the temple building and five others in a building nearby. Weapons were recovered in both incidents, he said. The police said eight soldiers and four extremists were killed on Saturday in a battle near Tarn Taran near Amritsar, and 80 people were captured. The spokesman would not confirm or deny this incident but said one extremist was killed by security forces in the southeast Punjab town of Patiala. Meanwhile, State television said a few Sikh soldiers joined a group of Sikhs from the northern state of Bihar on their way to Punjab. It gave no further details.

Police sources said between 150 and 200 soldiers from the Sikh regiment took eight Army trucks on Thursday from their base at Bikaner in the western state of Rajasthan, in apparent protest over the temple killings. The sources said the soldiers drove through a security cordon near the Punjab border and were finally intercepted at Malout in Punjab’s Firozpur district on Friday. Most of them had been disarmed, the sources added. The Defence Ministry spokesman denied the report and said Sikh extremists had masqueraded as members of the security

forces. The Press Trust of India news agency said Randhir Singh Cheema, head of a dissident faction of the main Sikh political party, the Akali Dal, was arrested in Punjab during the week-end. He leads the “Talwandi” .group which supported the militant Sikh preacher, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, killed in the temple attack. In India’s commercial capital, Bombay, 1000 Sikhs, including many of the most prominent in the city, met yesterday to protest against what they called “the inexcusable act of sacrilege committed by the Government” in attacking the temple.

The meeting passed a resolution calling for a protest march tomorrow despite a ban on marches and saying businesses owned by the 150,000 Sikhs in the city would close that day. Amarinder Singh, a member of the ruling Congress (I) Party and a close confidant of President Zail Singh, has resigned his seat in Parliament and from the party in protest over the military assault on the temple, P.T.I. said. Mr Singh, a Sikh, said he was deeply anguished over the action by the security forces. Zail Singh, also a Sikh, held an unusually long 90-

minute meeting with the Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, yesterday to discuss the Punjab situation, official sources said. They said he was upset over events at the complex and had cancelled his single engagement for yesterday — the release of a commemorative postage stamp. His visit to the temple on Friday was televised yesterday for the second night running. The programme also contained an interview with the officer in charge of the attack, who put the death toll at 55 soldiers and up to 400 extremists. Informed police sources have put the figure at more than 700.