AMRITSAR: India, Nov. 29, Reuter: Gunmen ambushed two of the most senior Sikh figures in North India on Tuesday wounding one and killing the other along with a bodyguard, police said.
They said Harinder Singh, a senior member of the committee governing Sikh temples, died after gunmen crashed a truck into his car near Ludhiana City in the state of Punjab and then riddled it with bullets,
Jagdev Singh Talwandi, president of the unified Akali Dal political party, was also in the car and was wounded; A Lubhiana hospital said he was out of danger.
Police said earlier two bodyguards had been killed, but later reported that one guard escaped with injuries as did two men in an escort jeep.
Singh and Talwandi were on their way to the Sikh Holy City of Amritsar to attend a temple management committee meeting.
Punjab police Chief K.P.S. Gill said the president of the Unified Akali Dal, Jagdev Singh Tal wandi, was ambushed in his car near his home village of Talwandi Rai.
Talwandi, who is in his late 60s, was taken critically ill to the hospital in the nearby industrial city of Ludhiana.
Police in the Punjab capital Chandigarh said it was not immediately clear which of the Sikh groups fighting for an independent Sikh homeland in the north Indian state was responsible for the shooting.
Talwandi has been prominent in recent days in trying to bring together warring factions of the Akali party, the regional Sikh political movement.
So far this year violence linked to Sikh separatism has led to more than 2,00 deaths in North India, nearly twice as many as in the whole of 1987.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 2, 1988
