AMRITSAR, India: Unidentified ‘gunmen killed nine people on Saturday. It was the final day of a weeklong protest marking the second anniversary of the army assault on the Golden Temple, the Sikhs’ holiest shrine,

Two Sikh groups meanwhile threatened a new round of reprisals,

Police said four separate attacks brought to 16 the number of people killed during “Genocide Week,” the observance organized by Sikh fighters to commemorate the deaths of about 6,000 Sikhs during the June 4-7 assault on the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

Two groups formed after that attack—the Khalistan Liberation Army and the Khalistan Commando Force—announced Saturday that as of June 21 they would begin a new round of reprisals unless the government restored visiting rights to about 400 Sikhs imprisoned at Jodhpur in Western India.

The separate Sikh state in India that freedom fighters are demanding would be named Khalistan.

The Sikh prisoners have been jailed since 1982 on charges of sedition and “waging war against the state,”

Their right to have visitors was cut off following a riot in Jodhpur Prison last April.

Punjab Police Superintendent H.L.K.S. Kahlon said five workmen three Sikhs and two Hindu-asleep at an ice factory in Tubuji village were killed Saturday in an attack by gunmen, the factory is owned by a Hindu, he said.

Two Hindus were killed at a grain market in Chola Sahib village in Amritsar District, Kahlon said, He said the attackers fired in all directions as they escaped, wounding two pursuing policemen,

The United News of India reported an Iranian student, identified only as Rahim was killed by two gunmen in Patiala district.

The agency said the ninth person killed Saturday was a doctor, killed near his clinic in the industrial city of Ludhiana.

Punjab Chief Minister Surjit Singh Barnala has been resisting pressure to have the army put in control of the Punjab to curb the violence.

The Sikhs, as distinct from the Hindu religion, are a warrior like religious men whose precepts include a requirement that every

Sikh carries a dagger. Moderate Sikhs want more autonomy for Punjab, where Sikhs constitute a majority, Freedom fighters are demanding a Sikh country separate from India, and Sikhs comprise about 2 percent of India’s 750 million people.

More than 8,000 Sikhs attended the rallies the previous week. The rally Wednesday ended with a rampage by 200 angry men in which a newly recruited pro-Govt guard was killed and seven other guards were wounded.

Police brought murder charges against 101 people after the rampage, but the three freedom fighters who led the charge at the temple are still at large.

Article extracted from this publication >> May 30, 1986