NEW DELHI, India, June 14, Reuter: Gunmen sprayed bullets at guests at a child’s birthday party and at late night strollers in suburban Delhi, killing 11 people and wounding 21 in the worst violent attack in the Indian capital in two years.

The gunmen struck in four places late last night leaving a trail of dead and dying on the streets of prosperous South Delhi, police told Reuters.

Police said they had not identified the attackers who escaped.

City Police Commissioner Ved Marwah put the capital on “red alert” and placed police check points on main roads,

Extra police were put on patrol at railway stations, airports, bus terminals and government buildings.

The attacks raised fears that the freedom fighters had once again shifted their battleground from Punjab where police have led a crackdown against them since

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi clamped direct rule from Delhi on the State on May 11.

Gunmen killed some 90 people in the capital and three adjoining states in May, 1985, by concealing booby trap bombs in transistor radios.

 

Last night gunmen burst into the home of a wealthy Hindu contractor in greater Kailash suburb where some 100 guests were celebrating his son’s first birthday.

“Initially we did not think much about the minor explosions but suddenly we heard the staccato burst of gunfire”, family member Rakesh Behl told reporters.

“People started running blindly and at that moment two gunmen burst in. They fired nearly 15 tounds from two stenguns…”.

Vijendra Kumar Behl told Reu ters he saw a man with a flowing beard and kerchief on his head fire a submachine gun at the family. The attack, which lasted two or three minutes left a total of six guests dead and eight injured.

The attackers also lobbed a grenade, which failed to explode, into the crowd which was chatting and drinking under a marquee in the garden. A banner reading “Happy Birthday” still hung outside the house today.

The gunmen, described as young, took over a car parked outside with three guests in it. They forced the driver to speed away at gunpoint. Police later found the car with the three guests shot dead inside.

One report said police also found a note in the vehicle written in Hindi which said: “I am the general of Bhindranwale force and if innocent people continue to be killed in Punjab by the C.R.P.F. (paramilitary police) then we will retaliate by killing people in Delhi”.

Police said they believed a second team of gunmen struck at an apartment complex and two other places in south Delhi. An ice cream vendor and a pedestrian died, a police source said.

Reporters who visited the scene soon after the attacks said the gunmen fired indiscriminately at people out for an after dinner walk, filmgoers coming out of a cinema, and people queuing to buy ice cream. Details of causalities were sketchy but hospital workers said five of the 21 injured were in a critical condition.

Police said they were on the alert for a backlash. The killing of Hindus has sparked Hindu Sikh clashes in the past both in Punjab and in Delhi.

Crowds, some led by outraged Sikhs, marched through markets in South Delhi this morning asking shopkeepers to close in protest at the killings. Many obeyed the call and markets were deserted.

Gunmen also struck last night in Punjab, killing four people near Amritsar including a leader of Gandhi’s Congress (1) Party. This took the toll in violence in the State this month to 30.

The imposition of direct rule on the Sikh majority state has done little to curb the killings which average two a day, police sources said.

Failure to stop the violence and forge a political solution in Punjab has jolted Gandhi whose Party faces Assembly elections in Hindu dominated Haryana State on Wednesday.

The violence is an emotive issue in Haryana which lies between Delhi and Punjab. Thousands of Hindus have fled there from Punjab to escape violent attacks.

Article extracted from this publication >>  June 19, 1987