Mutineers to face noose, says general
NZPA-Reuter Bombay Sikh soldiers found guilty of mutiny after deserting and trying to force their way to Punjab to protest against the Army’s attack on the Golden Temple in Amritsar will be hanged, a top Indian general said. Lieutenant-General T. S. Oberoi, chief of southern command, told a news conference yesterday that the Army had taken a very serious view of the mutiny, in which more than 1000 Sikh soldiers have been involved in different parts of India.
“The mutineers will be tried and, if found guilty, hanged. They have learnt a bitter lesson, and nobody would now dare to revolt in the Indian Army,” he said. Normality returned to much of Punjab yesterday, with bus and postal services resuming and offices and schools reopening in many parts of the state. But night curfew remains in most places. The Army has said 90 soldiers were killed when it launched its attack last week to flush out Sikh extremists holed up in the Golden Temple. Informed police sources said 712 Sikhs, including the fiery preacher, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, died in the The preacher was wft.ely seen as the
leader of the extremist faction in a two-year campaign by militant Punjab Sikhs for religious and political concessions.
General Oberoi said 126 non-commissioned Sikh soldiers set out for Punjab, in northern India, from Poona in the south-western state of Maharashtra on Sunday.
About half were intercepted at Thane in Maharashtra, while the rest were captured in a halfhour shoot-out, which left 13 deserters and one loyal soldier dead. The mutineers were a negligible fraction of the 80,000 Sikhs under his command, which covers the seven southern states of India. The Press Trust of India news agency quoted the Chief Minister of the northern state of Uttar Pradesh as saying 800 deserters and 600 civilians on their way to Punjab from the eastern state of Bihar had surrendered.
A Defence Ministry spokesman said the latest desertion occurred in Agartala, capital of the northeastern state of Triputa, where Sikh troops incited by Sikh extremists set off for Punjab. Most had been apprehended or returned to barracks and the rest wguld be apprehended soon. I
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Press, 14 June 1984, Page 10
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365Mutineers to face noose, says general Press, 14 June 1984, Page 10
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