AMRITSAR, India A police inspector and a Sikh freedom fighters died in a 10-minute shootout triggered Saturday by an unsuccessful attempt to free a Sikh prisoner and gunmen fired on sleeping Hindu farm workers, killing one, police reported.
The police inspector died when a band of Sikh gunmen ambushed a police squad that brought youth leader Amarjit Singh Chawla to the local Khalsa College. A police spokesman said the gunmen fired ‘on the police and attempted to free Chawla.
Inspector Jarnail Singh, a Sikh, and one of the gunmen were killed, the spokesman said. The gun men escaped by scaling the back wall of the college.
Chawla, who has been in jail since 1984 awaiting trial on charges of “waging a war against the country,” and been brought to the college to appear in the graduation examination of Bachelor of Science.
The head constable, Mr, Manjit Singh, and the driver of the jeep, were injured in the shoot-out, They were taken to the local Sri Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital for treatment. Giving details of the shoot-out, district police chief, SS. Virk, said that the police consisting and six constables came under fire when they ‘amount of the police van along with Mr. Chawala, Mr, Jarnail ‘Singh, who was at the front, ran towards the building for protection but was hit by a bullet fired by young man who had also taken up position in the building. One of the gunmen was hit when he was about to jump over the wall to escape. The other two assailants escaped. The police later recovered the Maruti car used by the assailants, A gun was also found in the car which had been abandoned by them at a distance of two kilometers from the College. The car was earlier snatched away from the driver of Mr. Dalbir Singh, Secretary of Khalsa College, in the Green Avenue area where he had gone to meet the Congress (I) M.P., Mr. Gurdial Singh Dillon.
Meanwhile, the entire sub-division area of Tarn Taran in Amritsar District has been placed under the direct charge of the battalion of Central Reserved Police to check Violence, Mr. J.N, Murti, the commander of one of the CRP.F battalions has been made inchoate of the operation. The D.I.G. Jullundur range Mr. P.C. Dogra said that a senior police officer, S.P. Headquarters has been posted at Tarn Taran and the D.S.P. there has been shifted.
Around midnight Friday night, a group of gunmen sprayed gunfire on six Hindu workers sleeping in the open in suburban Amritsar and then escaped on foot, police reported.
At least 45 people have been killed in vengeance shootings since the commando assault on the Golden Temple ten days ago.
The freedom fighters have vowed to kill more if armed plain clothes police do not withdraw from inside the shrine.
The assembly session summoned by Punjab Governor Siddhartha Shankar Ray will test the strength of the rival factions.
Chief Minister Sujit Singh Barnala’s 7-month-old state government was reduced to a minority when 27 of the moderate Akali Dal party’s 73 legislators defected in protest of the temple raid.
The fate of Barnala’s government will be decided in the June 2 Assembly session, Dissident legislators plan to move a motion of no-conference against his administration. Barnala’s camp has decided to counter by calling for a vote to remove the house chairman, a dissident leader.
Barnala’s Sikh, moderate.
Article extracted from this publication >> May 16, 1986
