NEW DELHI, June 22, Reuter: Indian Home (Interior) Minister, Buta Singh issued an urgent call for communal harmony on Wednesday after bomb blasts in which 25 people were killed.
“Communal harmony should be maintained at all costs”, Singh said in a statement after 25 people were killed on Tuesday by sophisticated time bombs planted in a busy street near the Golden Temple, Sikhdom’s holiest shrine in the nor them city of Amritsar,
The bombs, which injured 60 people, were planted in a street of largely Hindu merchants and timed to explode.
Early evening as people flocked to a nearby stock exchange for the latest business news.
Both Sikhs and Hindus were killed. Angry crowds threw bottles and stones at the police when they arrived at the scene, witnesses said, and beat up at least six Sikhs.
Singh blamed that some people are bent upon instigating communal riots by organizing attacks at crowded places in various states”.
He praised people for refusing to be provoked by the bombings, but police were clearly nervous of inter communal rioting.
Later that night, a bomb was thrown at people leaving a cinema in Pehowa in the neighboring state of Haryana, and then sprayed them with automatic rifle fire. Six were killed and 15 wounded.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 1, 1988
