Golden Temple again symbol of struggle

Press, 18 February 1986, Page 6

Golden Temple again symbol of struggle

NZPA-Reuter New Delhi Sikh extremists shot dead a Hindu leader near the Sikh holy city of Amritsar where militants and moderates are locked in a bitter struggle over control over the Golden Temple, Indian police said. Two gunmen killed Chaman Lal, president of the local branch of Shiv Sena, a Right-wing Hindu group in the Sikh-majority Punjab state. The attack was the

worst incident of violence in a day marked by rival shows of force by Sikh hardliners and moderates battling for the Temple, their religion’s holiest shrine. More than 100,000 moderates vowed at a rally in the historic village of Anandpur Sahib to wrest control of the Temple from student-led militants who occupied it on January 26. At a rival gathering 160 km away in Amritsar the militants pledged not to give up the Temple without a fight. Indian newspapers said the rallies had put the sides on collision course. The showdown has threatened a fragile political stability in the state where Sikh extremists want to set up a separate

Sikh nation known as Khalistan. The moderates passed a resolution accusing the militants of leading Sikhs towards civil war. The Punjab Chief Minister, Mr Surgit Singh Barnala, who has faced relentless extremist violence since coming to power in September, hinted that the state would act quickly and use force to oust the militants.

“If we cannot send police into the Golden Temple and it is taken as a sign of weakness and more and more arms are stockpiled, then who else can go in except the Army,” he said. The Indian Army stormed the temple in June, 1984, at the cost of 1000 lives.