Punjab Leadership in Turmoil Over Attack on Sikhs’ Temple

The moderate Sikh government of India’s Punjab state was in turmoil Saturday because of a series of resignations and extremist attacks set off by a raid on the Sikhs’ holiest shrine, the Golden Temple at Amritsar.

Meanwhile, police reported that suspected Sikh extremists have gunned down at least five people, including a policeman, in separate attacks in Punjab since Friday night.

Chief Minister Surjit Singh Barnala ordered thousands of security forces to attack the temple Wednesday after Sikh extremists declared the independent state of “Khalistan” from inside the temple.

It was the first raid on the site since June, 1984, when the army attacked the temple and more than 1,200 people, mostly Sikhs, were killed. Security forces normally do not enter holy places in India.

News reports said last week’s attack was approved by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, whose mother and predecessor, Indira Gandhi, was assassinated by Sikh bodyguards five months after the first raid on the temple.

Rajiv Gandhi last year was hailed as a peacemaker for reaching an accord with Sikh moderates to end Sikh agitation for greater autonomy, but the pact has collapsed, and the state of Punjab has been the scene of increasing violence.

Three members of Barnala’s 12-member Cabinet--Tourism Minister Suchha Singh Chotepur, Agriculture Minister Amrinder Singh and Education Minister Sukhjinder Singh--have resigned since Friday to protest the raid.

At least 12 other officials of the Sikhs’ moderate Akali Dal party have also stepped down.

“There was no need for the police to attack,” Amrinder Singh told a reporter. “After all, what have they achieved besides recapturing the temple?”

Police have said the five extremists who declared the independent state slipped away before the raid, in which one person was killed and two others were injured.

Barnala said the raid was necessary because extremists who controlled the temple since January “almost declared a war against the country.”

Sikhs, an influential religious minority, make up about 2% of India’s 750 million people.