A firm hand on Punjab

Press, 15 May 1987, Page 6

A firm hand on Punjab

NZPA-Reuter New Delhi The Prime Minister’s Government enforced a stem crackdown yesterday on Sikh hardliners in Punjab, sending out arrest orders for 400 people and reinforcing police in the troubled north Indian state.

Some two days after Mr Rajiv Gandhi dismissed the state’s moderate Sikh Government and assumed direct central Government control, more than 70,000 police and paramilitary forces were on duty, including 3600 rein-

forcements sent in. At least 225 people have been arrested so far, the Press Trust of India said, since central Government rule was imposed on Monday.

Those arrested included a Minister in the Cabinet of the sacked state Chief Minister, Surjit Singh Barnala. Others included activists from Sikh student groups and hardline political organisations.

Political sources in the state capital Chandigarh told Reuters that Mr Gandhi’s Government was expected to open talks with leaders associated with

Sikh militants in a carrot-and-stick approach to a political solution.

Mr Gandhi has staked his prestige, already damaged by recent allegations of arms sale pay-offs and state electoral losses, in a drive to restore order in Punjab where extremists have campaigned violently for a separate Sikh state.

Punjab’s police direc-tor-general, Mr Julio Ribeiro, told the State-run All-India Radio yesterday that arrest orders for about 400 people had been circulated throughout Punjab. Many of those were being sought for taking part in a Sikh fundamentalist campaign to close down liquor and meat shops in the state. P.T.I. said many members of hardline Sikh groups had gone underground to evade arrest. It said the arrest of other former Ministers could not be ruled out.

The news agency also said the state Governor Siddhartha Shankar Ray, who took over administration from the dismissed Barnala Ministry, had conferred with Mr Gandhi, and the Home Minister, Buta Singh, and President Zail Singh, both Sikhs.