Gandhi Leads Memorial Rally for Indira; Sikhs Riot

Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi today led more than a million people in chanting “Indira Gandhi is immortal” on the first anniversary of her assassination, while Sikh militants in Amritsar hailed her killers as heroes and demolished part of a building in the holy Golden Temple.

Gandhi, Indira’s son and predecessor, told a heavily guarded rally, “She was not only my mother but the mother of every poor Indian.” A 90-foot figure of a smiling, sari-clad Indira Gandhi stood next to the podium.

Indian President Zail Singh, a Sikh, was conspicuous by his absence from the podium, although he paid tribute to Indira Gandhi earlier at her cremation site and memorial and released a book about her.

Almost 80,000 police were deployed in the capital of New Delhi to prevent Sikh terrorist attacks. Air force helicopters hovered over capital lawns, the rally site, and thousands of commandos and sharpshooters were stationed in the area.

In Amritsar, Punjab, more than 35,000 Sikh militants streamed into the Golden Temple complex to glorify Gandhi’s slain Sikh assassin.

Late in the afternoon, about 500 young militants destroyed a pure white marble balcony of the Akal Takht, one of the holiest buildings in the Golden Temple complex.

In five minutes, they smashed into rubble the intricately carved, 23-foot-long balcony to protest its “pollution by Indian government repair” after the army stormed the temple in June, 1984, to root out Sikh terrorists. That attack was believed to have left more than 1,000 people dead.

The government has said that Gandhi’s assassins wanted revenge for the attack on the Golden Temple, one of the holiest Sikh shrines.

Gandhi was assassinated on the garden path at her residence by security guards identified as Sikhs. One, Beant Singh, was killed at the scene and the other accused gunman, Satwant Singh, was charged with murder and is on trial.