CHANDIGARH: A special police officer (SPO) was among nine people killed while abortive attempts were made to blow up the Amritsar television tower, a passenger train and a railway bridge in Punjab on May 18. During the Test of the week 21 persons lost their lives.
Sadhu Singh, SPO was killed near village Raigarh in Ludhiana district following an exchange of fire.
Security forces foiled an attempt by the militants to destroy a television transmission tower near Amritsar around. It was the second abortive bid in the last two months to blow up the tower.
About 18 feet of railway track was blown off while attempts were also made on security forces at different places.
Gunmen also shot dead one Kashmir Kaur in village Purian Kalan in Batala police district last night. The assailants barged into the house of one Kundan Singh and fired indiscriminately killing his wife on the spot.
In another incident a farmer Gurjant Singh was killed near village Mehraj in Bhatinda district.
Police also picked up the body of a youth from Ramanmandi area also in Bhatinda district.
The intrusions had occurred close to Pakistan border posts and firing had taken place for more than 30 minutes in most of the 18 instances this year. All these had been mentioned in protest notes to Pakistan, he said.
Pakistan had submitted two protest notes at the meeting against 14 by India.
One of them related to Pakistan’s concern over the erection of steel towers by the BSF. Islamabad had asked for the dismantling of these towers because they allegedly violated the ground rules.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 11, 1990
