AMRITSAR, India the five top priests of the Sikh religion Saturday ordered Punjab’s moderate chief minister to clean shoes at a shrine for one week to atone for ‘ordering an assault last month on the holy Golden Temple.

The edict was delivered to Chief Minister Sugit Singh Barnala in the Golden Temple complex where he was summoned by the priests to defend his April 30 attack on the shire.

The five head priests told Barnala the operation had caused “pain and sorrow” to the Sikh community and ordered him to wipe the dust from the shoes of ‘worshipers at any Sikh temple for ‘one week.

Before entering shrines Sikhs remove their shoes, which are often cleaned by penitent volunteers.

The Sikh leader, who has been attempting to mediate a bloody conflict between Sikhs and Hindus, was ordered to pay a $40 fine, recite a Sikh hymn 25 times and finance a prayer ceremony on his behalf.

Government spokesman said he accepted the punishment and would begin cleaning shoes Sunday at the Anandpur Sahib temple, about 100 miles of Amritsar.

Earlier, Barnala told the priests he was forced to order the “unwanted operation after five Sikh leaders in the temple declared an independent Sikh nation.

Seven Sikhs were killed and 370 Sikh freedom fighters were arrested in the assault that disrupted a 3-month-old Kar Sewa of the ‘Akal Takht undertaken by Dam Dami Taksal and A.I.S.S.F.

Political analysts said Barnala accepted the punishment to undermine efforts by dissident members of the Akali Dal to further arouse Sikh sentiments against the attack.

Twenty-seven Akali Dal legislators, including three Cabinet ministers, broke away in protest against the operation reducing Barnala Government to a minority.

Police say the Punjab Government’s political crisis has encouraged Sikh freedom fighters. Po lice blame them for killing at least 45 people since the assault. Officials fear the violence, aimed mainly at minority Hinduism Punjab, will cause an exodus of Hindus to other a Indian: states where they are in the majority.

In the latest bloodshed police in the state capital of Chandigarh said two Gunmen late Friday shot and killed a Sikh and injured a member of his family at his home near Mallanwala, about 40 miles south of Amritsar. The agency also reported that two people were killed and one injured when five gunmen opened fire Friday night at two places near the town of Batala, about 20 miles from Amritsar.

Article extracted from this publication >> May 23, 1986