CHANDIGARH: A senior Akali Dal (Badal) leader and party candidate for Faridkot Lok Sabha (parliamentary) seat Shaminder Singh was killed in a powerful bomb blast in Muktsar in the Punjab early Tuesday morning. According to official reports reaching the state headquarters here the blast occurred around 0630 hrs IST at his residence when Shaminder Singh was having discussions with Dyal Singh Sandhu party candidate for the Muktsar assembly seat.
Sandhu and another person Rikhi Ram were seriously injured in the blast allegedly engineered by militants
The election in the Faridkot parliamentary constituency has been countermanded In another important militant related development Mr Guru Singh an A.I.S.S.F backed candidate from Morinda Assembly constituency escaped an assassination attempt on Tuesday morning in his home village Paprali where however four of his gunmen were killed. The suspected militants took away the gunmen’s weapons. According to are port from Bassi Pathana the Bhindranwale Tiger Force of Khalistan took responsibility for the attack on Mr Sarup Singh.
Mr Sarup Singh a businessmen of Chandigarh was quite close to the then Punjab Governor Mr Arjun Singh and was instrumental in bringing about the abortive talks between the Government and the then Jodhpur detainees including Bhai Manjit Singh.
With the countermanding of the Faridkot seat two Lok Sabha contests in Punjab have been cancelled the other Constituency being Jalandhar. In addition so far is lection in 12 Assembly has been leaving 103 Assembly seats for the June 22 contests.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 21, 1991
