Curfews relaxed as Indian violence eases

Press, 6 November 1984, Page 8

Curfews relaxed as Indian violence eases

NZPA-Reuter New Delhi Curfews were relaxed in several Indian towns and cities yesterday as violence abated after a bloody antiSikh backlash triggered by the assassination of the Indian Prime Minister, Mrs Gandhi. India’s new Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, held a Cabinet meeting on Sunday night and ordered a commission of inquiry into his mother’s assassination by two Sikh bodyguards five days ago. The death toll in a national wave of anti-Sikh looting, shooting and burning has risen to more than 900. The Press Trust of India reported that at least 23 bodies were found in northern Uttar Pradesh and central Madhya Pradesh states. Only isolated incidents were reported by officials on Sunday. With one person was wounded in a knife attack in New Delhi and there were fresh arson attacks at a steel town in the state of Orissa. A curfew on New Delhi

was relaxed early yesterday, but security forces remained on alert with armoured fighting vehicles at key intersections. New Delhi’s new Lieuten-ant-Governor Mr M. M. K. Wall, said that 458 people had been killed in Delhi during the unrest and police had opened fire in 102 separate incidents to quell rioting. More than 1800 people had been arrested. Emergency food supplies had been sent to about 20,000 Sikhs at refugee camps in Delhi, he said. Many train services were expected to be resumed, but with strong police escorts on board. During the violence many Sikhs were dragged from carriages and bludgeoned or burned to death by enraged Hindus. Officials in Chandigarh, the state capital of Punjab, where most of India’s 12 million Sikhs live, said the towns of Jullundur and Ludhiana, as well as the Holy city of Amritsar were tense. In Amritsar, where troops stormed the Golden Temple

in June, five Sikh high priests appealed to the Government to put emergency powers on three north Indian States and New Delhi to protect Sikh lives and property. Mr Gandhi, sworn in as Prime Minister hours after his mother was shot outside her New Delhi home, enlarged his Cabinet to 14 Ministers and ordered an inquiry headed by a Supreme Court judge. Officials have said that Mrs Gandhi was attacked by two Sikh bodyguards, both of whom were shot by fellow security men. One of the killers died and the other was taken to hospital, they said. Police sources said that a man accused of being a mastermind in a conspiracy to kill Mrs Gandhi left India a week before the assassination. The sources said that the man was believed to have headed Sikh extremists in New Delhi and had administered an oath to the two bodyguards to kill Mrs Gandhi. Yesterday Mr Gandhi ex-

panded the small emergency Cabinet set up after his mother’s death, retaining most of the Ministers who had served Mrs Gandhi. Mr Gandhi was sworn in as the new head of the Government on Wednesday with four Ministers of Cabinet rank within hours of the assassination. The new list adds nine Cabinet Ministers, 21 Ministers of State and 11 Deputy Ministers. All members of Mrs Gandhi’s Government were included, except the Planning Minister Mr P. C. Sethi, and two Ministers of State. Mr Sethi was switched from the Home (Interior) portfolio to Planning soon after the Indian Army stormed the Sikh Golden Temple at Amritsar. He was blamed for failure to check extremist Sikh violence in Punjab. Political analysts said that Mr Gandhi had retained old faces to avert possible dissension within the ruling Congress (I) Party with two months before the expected General Elections.