CHHANDIGARH, India: Gunmen stormed a festive Punjab wedding party Wednesday and shot to death six Sikhs, including the bridegroom a cousin of India’s top law enforcement minister, state police said.
Five people were wounded in the shootings that raised the year’s death toll from violence in Punjab to 682. State police said six other people had been killed and at least eight wounded Tuesday night and Wednesday.
Police said that around midnight, gunmen burst into the home of bridegroom Amrik Singh, 22, cousin of Home Minister Buta Singh, the Cabinet Minister in charge of law enforcement. He had been married a few hours before and a marriage celebration was under way, with singing, dancing and drinking. The gunmen, numbering about 10, arrived in a truck and opened fire with semiautomatic weapons in Mustaphapur village in the north central Jullundur district.
After the attack, Singh rushed to the village, his ancestral home.
Other relatives of Singh, a member of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s government, also were killed in the attack. The bride fled to safety.
A shop selling country liquor had been opened in a corner of that house. One witness said the gunmen told Amrik Singh they would “teach you a lesson” for renting space for a liquor store.
The bridegroom, identified as an employee of the liquor shop, was heard pleading with the gunmen, “I am only a worker with no share”, but he was gunned down.
Article extracted from this publication >> August 28, 1987
