This Issue is Dedicated to our Martyrs
SRINAGAR, India: Hindu Sikh Violence spread on Saturday to areas outside the Northern city of Jammu where 23 people were killed and 150 injured in clashes on Friday. About 250 vehicles and 200 shops were torched, according to reliable sources. Curfew restrictions, clamped on Jammu on Friday, were extended to nearby Udhampur and several other towns of the state following clashes there on Saturday, the sources said.
Army was patrolling Srinagar as the city was in the grip of an uneasy peace. The Chief Minister, Farooq Abdullah stated at a meeting with citizens that he was kept in the dark about the happenings by the local administration. Hedid not have all the knowledge about various incidents even up till then, he added. He said he was prepared to quit his post. The Chief Secretary Murtaza Raza said the administration had collapsed when Jammu city was rocked by violence. Many heads would roll, he said, admitting that officers were nowhere to be seen to control the situation.
Mr. Nirmal Singh, now admitted to the Post Graduate Medical Institute, Chandigarh with serious injuries stated that he was chanting. “Waheguru” when he was attacked by a raving mob in the
Purani Mandi. According to other patients of the Jammu violence at Chandigarh, the violence was planned and the trouble started when procession reached Purani Mandi, a stronghold of Shiv Sena, where first rubbish and then stones were hurled at the precisionists from the housetops leading to verbal altercations which quickly took an ugly turn in which seven persons were killed on the spot and many injured.
A Government spokesman said by telephone the clashes started during a march by Sikhs carrying portraits of Satwant Singh, who shot Mrs. Gandhi in 1984 and Kehar Singh, convicted of plotting the assassination. Both were hanged in Delhi’s Tihar jail a week ago.
Hindu militants of Shiv Sena (The God Shiva’s Army), angered by the portraits and slogans, attacked the Sikhs, the spokesman. said.
The United News of India said an indefinite curfew was imposed in Jammu, winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir State.
The Sikhs, celebrating the birthday on Saturday of Gobind Singh, the 10th Guru of their faith, also chanted slogans praising the two men.
Observers note that Congress (I) had used the street mentality of the Hindus of Jammu in 1982 to win a series of electoral battles in the north leading to the operation Bluestar in 1984.
The army was called out after the mob fury was almost over which is still roaming the streets to keep the situation under control.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 20, 1989
