NEW DELHL, India, and November 30, 1986: Four gunmen hijacked a bus in a rural area of the Punjab today, ordered Hindu passengers off the bus and then shot them with submachine guns and revolvers. At least 24 people were reported killed and several others were wounded, according to Indian news agencies tonight.

It was the worst single attack in the troubled northern state in more than a year. The police were immediately put on alert in New Delhi and in parts of the Punjab and the neighboring Hindu dominated state of Haryana to guard against retaliation by Hindus.

Today’s massacre was similar to an incident in July in which gunmen also singled out Hindu passengers on a bus and killed 15 people. After that episode, antiSikh rioting spread through parts of the capital and at least five Sikhs were killed in fighting and clashes with the police and Hindus.

An Escape on Motorcycles

The attack today occurred early this evening in the rural Hoshiarpur district near Khudda village and it appeared to have been carefully planned. The police said four armed men stopped the bus ordered it driven to a remote area and then carried out the killings.

When they finished, accomplices pulled up on motorcycles or scooters and the gunmen fled, the police said.

The incident shocked Indian Political leaders and citizens and awakened fears of new violence in conflict that has led to thousands of killings in the last few years.

Again official news organizations by identifying the victims only as members of “a certain community”.

Government circles maintained that the attack was part of a continuing campaign to assassinate Hindus and drive them from the state of Punjab so that only Sikhs remain. The objective of the Sikhs is to transform the state into an independent nation to be called “Khalistan” which means “land of the pure”.

The attack was another blow to the political existence of the self-seeking Sikhs who have been governing the Sikh dominated state for more than a year with the support of the Central government.

Surjit Singh Barnala, the Punjab Chief Minister condemned the killings as “an act of criminal minds acting at the behest of foreign powers to disintegrate the nation”.

Surjit Singh Barnala received another blow today in the form of vote among Sikhs for the new president of the Committee that operates the Sikh temples in India. Mr Barnalas candidate was defeated in the election by a man widely described as having the support of Sikh radicals.

Sikhs area religious sect formed more than 500 years ago as an offshoot of mysticism and monotheism from both Islam and Hinduism. The religions political leader ship is divided between pro religion and pro Delhi rulers, with the pro religion tending to view the acts of violence against Hindus as the handiwork of government agents posing as vengeance seekers for the killing and jailing of Sikhs by the Government in recent years.

The new attack was considered likely to renew the cycle of relation, drawing Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi further into the maelstrom on an issues that led to the assassination in 1984 of his mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her two security guards.

Although the Sikhs cause began as a drive for ending religious persecution and demands for an independent nation, many political analysts say it has now become a matter of life and death struggle among the devout Sikhs who fear that their religion and way of life is being wiped out by the Hindus.

Prime Minister Gandhi achieved what was considered a breakthrough last year by reaching a al package with pro Delhi Sikhs, leading to their installation in power in Punjab state. The move did little to reconcile the pro religion however who viewed the package as selling out to the Hindu dominated Government in New Delhi.

Since then, the so called Sikh state government has been unable to cope with violence. Each day for the last several months seems to bring another new attack, with one or two or three people killed by what newspapers routinely characterize as Sikh “extremists”, although in most cases the killings appear to have been committed by common criminals, like bank robbers, or in longstanding family or community feuds.

Mr. Gandhi has been pressed to intervene, either by sending in the army or removing Mr. Barnalas government. This pressure was widely considered to have increased with the attack today.

Mr. Gandhis strategy has been to strengthen the police force in the Punjab by installing his own police director, Julius F, Ribiero, who announced earlier this month that 57 Sikhs had been killed in the first 10 months of this year and that many more had been arrested.

Article extracted from this publication >> December 5, 1986