AMRITSAR: Authorities arrested eight Sikh freedom fighters Saturday including a general of a militant organization officials said.
They identified the suspected militant leader as Tarsem Singh vice-commander-in-chief of the Khalistan Liberation Army one of several groups waging a determined campaign in Punjab State
Amritsar Police Chief Mohammad Izhar Alam said Singh was involved in more than a dozen slayings including the assassination of a Hindu city councilman in the town of Fatehgarh Churian.
Alam told reporters Singh was arrested near an Amritsar bus station and was carrying a pistol. The seven other militants wanted for several attacks were captured elsewhere in Amritsar and nearby Gurdaspur he said.
In another development police in the Punjab town of Mukstar said they arrested one man in connection with an attack on a bus last month in which 16 passengers were slain United News of India said.
It said police arrested Baljinder Singh of Ranjitgarh village and charged him with harboring the four men who carried out the attack
On July 25 four masked gunmen stopped a bus near Mukstar Separated the Hindu Passengers from the others and shot them the massacre sparked Hindu-Sikh clashes in New Delhi the next day in which six Sikhs were killed and more than 100 were injured.
Mukstar is 87 miles south of Amritsar
Article extracted from this publication >> August 9, 1991
