CHANDIGARH, India, Dec. 3, Reuter: Police detained the former Head of the Sikh religion in the north Indian State of Punjab on Thursday and banned an antigovernment march he was to have led on New Delhi.
About 100 police surrounded’ the home of the former High Priest Darshan Singh near the Punjab capital, Chandigarh, and prevented his leaving.
Punjab Police Chief Julio Ribeiro said the march had been stopped “to prevent large-scale trouble in Delhi”.
Singh, former Acting Head of India’s 14 million Sikhs, was scheduled to lead a march by Sikh opposition groups on Friday demanding a political settlement in Punjab where militants have been fighting for a separate state,
“A police official this morning, told me: ‘you are under House arrest”, Singh told Reuters by telephone.
He and other Sikh leaders said the protest would go ahead despite Singh’s arrest and the police ban.
“The march will be taken out”, Ujjagar Singh Sekhwan, acting President of the United Akali Dal,
The main Sikh opposition party, said,
A police spokesman said Dar Shan Singh would remain under arrest for a month.
He said police feared the march ‘would spark clashes between Sikhs and Hindus,
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi sacked the State’s moderate Sikh government in May for failing to curb the violence and imposed direct rule from New Delhi.
The protestors have four other demands:
The release of Sikhs held after the Indian army stormed Amritsar’s Golden Temple, the Sikh’s holiest shrine, in 1984,
The rehabilitation of Sikh soldiers who deserted after the assault.
An end to what they charge is killings of Sikh suspects in police custody.
The punishment of those res possible for the killing of more than 10,000 Sikhs in New Delhi after the October31, 1984, assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her bodyguards.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 11, 1987
