NEW DELHI, India, April 18, (Reuter): Unknown gunmen, believed to be associated with Sikh freedom fighting groups, killed eight people in the past 24 hours in Punjab and threatened to carry their guerrilla war into the Indian capital, police said.
A police spokesman in Chandigarh, the Punjab State Capital, said a group of gunmen opened fire in a village in Amritsar district last night, killing five people.
He said the group which struck at Lopoke village was armed with sten guns, rifles, and revolvers. In another attack in Punjab yesterday gunmen killed a member of the Nihang sect and his son and injured his daughter and daughter-in-law in a village in Jullundur district, he said.
In a third attack elsewhere in Punjab, they shot dead a farmer.
The killings raised to 57 the death toll during the current month in the violence related to the struggle for an independent Sikh nation to be carved in Punjab.
The spokesman said the violence could spill over into the Indian capital where authorities yesterday ordered police on a citywide alert after receiving reports of a possible Sikh attack.
Security was tightened at New Delhi railway station, where explosives were discovered on a crowded platform last Wednesday, at the airport and at the homes of political leaders.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 24, 1987
