CHANDIGARH, India: Gunmen attacked a busy market today, injuring 11 people, on the eve of the scheduled transfer of the Punjab-Haryana joint capital of Chandigarh to Punjab state.
Police said three gunmen armed with submachine guns and handguns fired indiscriminately into a crowded market in the town of Nakodar, 80 miles north of Chandigarh in the strife-torn northern state of Punjab,
Police said 11 people were injured, four of them seriously. They said the gunmen escaped on motor scooters following the early morning attack.
‘The shooting in Nakodar prompted authorities to impose a curfew on the town as about 500 Hindus began throwing rocks and set fire t0 a motor scooter to protest the incident, police said.
In another incident, gunmen shot and killed a junior police official in Bhatinda, 140 miles northwest of New Delhi, as he was driving home, police said. No other details were available. Hundreds of people have died since the beginning of the year of violence fighting for an independent Sikh nation in the Punjab, where Sikhs make up a majority. Today’s incidents came as about 60 percent of shops closed in Chandigarh, 120 miles of north New Delhi, in observance of a strike called by an organization opposed to Saturday’s scheduled transfer of the city in Punjab. Police arrested about 12 youths during the strike who tried to force shops in a section of the city to close.
A spokesman for the Haryana government said authorities issued a statewide ban on gatherings of more than five people and prohibited the carrying of firearms, in advance of the state wide strike Saturday called by opposition groups to protest the transfer.
About 8,000 paramilitary troops have been on alert in Hindu.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 27, 1986
