AMRITSAR, Punjab, India: April 15, Reuter: Unknown gunmen shot dead a Hindu Political leader in a crowded marketplace in the Sikh Holy City of Amritsar on Friday, and then fled on bicycles.
Police in the North Indian city said two men fired about six pistol shots at Prakash Dua, a prominent activist of the rightwing Bharatiya Janata Party, which opposes the formation of a separate Sikh state.
Dua, 45, was opening his electrical shop when the gunmen struck. Panic stricken storekeepers immediately downed their shutters after the shooting.
In another incident, Sikh freedom fighters stormed a police armory in Delhon, a village about 120 km (75 miles) from Chandigarh, the Punjab capital, on Thursday and escaped with six rifles, the police said.
Five other people were killed in incidents since Thursday night in where nearly 100 people have died this month in violence sparked by fighting for a separate state.
Police in New Delhi said they thwarted plans for major attacks in the Indian capital with the arrest of a top militant whom they identified Avtar Singh.
They said he was a member of the Bhindranwale Tiger Force group and had planned to “break all previous records of killing in Delhi and Punjab”.
Article extracted from this publication >> April 22, 1988
