AMRITSAR, Punjab, India Feb. 20, and Reuter: Eleven members of a Sikh family were shot by a gang of unknown gunmen near Amritsar, the Sikh Holy City of Amritsar, early on Saturday, police said.
They said the entire family of Jewal Singh, including women and children, had been killed at their home in Sansara, a village about 30 km from Amritsar. The assailants then piled up their bodies, doused them with petrol and set fire to them before escaping.
In another incident in Punjab, three Hindu laborers were killed at Ehaini Gillan village, 15 km from Amritsar, the police added. They said the slaughter of the family had been discovered some hours after the killers escaped.
It was clearly a “revenge killing” on the pattern adopted in recent months by these types of elements.
Militants have made policy of killing of families of those they suspect of being police informers. But this was believed to be the largest number of members of a family wiped out in a single incident,
The killings followed a day of violence in Punjab on Friday during which 13 people died, eight of them in a series of bombings around law courts in the north Indian state.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 26, 1988
