AMRITSAR —sixteen people died in India’s Punjab State on Sunday as militants marked the New Year with a fresh upsurge of violence.
Police said three people including a priest were killed and 15 were injured when a bomb hidden in a bicycle basket exploded outside a Hindu temple in Chwinda Devi village 32 KM (20 miles) north of Amritsar.
Elsewhere two policemen and three militants were shot dead. One of the suspects, Gurnam Singh, had been freed on bail only hours before two men shot him in his home near Batala.
The other victims were five Hindu villagers three of them shot in a single incident two home guards and an intruder from across the Pakistan Border killed by a Frontier patrol. India has long accused Pakistan of arming and harboring Sikh militants.
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, returning on Saturday from meeting Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, said in reference to the Punjab problem that he believed her statement that she did not intend to interfere in India’s internal affairs.
Article extracted from this publication >> January 6, 1989
