Sikh revenge killings feared

Press, 12 August 1986, Page 10

Sikh revenge killings feared

NZPA-Reuter New Delhi

Indian police forces were on maximum alert yesterday after the assassination of the general who planned a military attack on the Sikhs’ holiest shrine, the Golden Temple at Amritsar. Security precautions ordered within hours of the killing of General Arun Vaidya included increased guards over V.I.P.S on a Sikh extremist hit-list, drawn up to avenge the 1984 army assault in which more than 1000 people died.

General Vaidya, India’s most decorated soldier, who retired in January as army chief-of-staff, was a key figure on the list.

A national manhunt began yesterday after four young gunmen on two motor-cycles shot General Vaidya and wounded his wife as they drove home from a shopping trip in the town of Pune, about 150 km east of Bombay. The gunmen sped up on either side of the gen-

eral’s car, pumped about 10 bullets into the vehicle and accelerated away before a guard in the back seat could draw his revolver. “General Vaidya was a symbol of India’s strength and determination to remain a united nation,” ■ said the Home Minister, Mr Buta Singh, as he ordered the police alert The killing cast a security shadow on India’s Independence Day celebra-

tions on Friday and came amid breakthroughs by security forces battling extremists in Punjab State. The Punjab police chief said a series of raids over the last two days had netted nearly 30 top extremists, including the head of the Khaiistan Commando Force, the most militant of the groups fighting for a separate nation in Sikhmajority Punjab.