CHANDIGARH, INDIA, AUG. 4, REUTER — Gunmen killed a hardline Hindu leader on Thursday as he lay in hospital recovering from a car crash, Indian police said.
They said Tej Pal Sathi was shot dead along with his bodyguard in a hospital in Ludhiana city in north India’s Punjab state.
Sathi, head of a breakaway faction of the militant Shiv Sena (Shiva’s Army), is the third rightwing
Hindu leader to be killed in less than two weeks.
In other Punjab violence, gunmen shot dead a moderate Sikh Temple official and a police constable visiting his native village on leave, the Press Trust of India said.
The news agency said three members of a family, suspected of being police informers, were also shot dead armed with automatic rifles.
Police say militants sighting for an independent Sikh homeland in Punjab hope to provoke an anti-Sikh backlash by killing Hindu leaders.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 12, 1988
