Hindus, Sikhs Clash in Punjab Over Massacre

Hindus battled Sikhs during a daylong general strike Friday in Amritsar protesting the massacre of 11 people by Sikh gunmen.

Hindu youths, angry over escalating terrorist attacks on their minority community in Punjab, also rioted in several other parts of the northern state, the only one in India where Sikhs predominate. Police said attempts by Hindus to close Sikh-owned shops triggered interfaith clashes.

Amritsar Police Superintendent H.K.S. Kahlon said rioters threw acid on a Sikh policeman, causing severe burns. An unidentified woman’s hands were chopped off with an ax, and rioters torched a photo studio in the sectarian violence, the city police control room said.

The strike, called by the Hindu Shiv Sena, or God’s Army, closed stores, businesses, schools, offices and theaters in this Sikh holy city of 750,000, authorities said.

Gunmen Escaped

The Hindus were protesting the Wednesday night attack in the Krishna Nagar district. Police and witnesses said nine Sikhs fired indiscriminately at three different places in the predominantly Hindu neighborhood, then escaped in a car. They killed 11 people and seriously wounded seven.

It was the bloodiest attack in Amritsar since Sikh terrorist violence first began in Punjab in 1980.

Revenge-seeking Sikhs have killed a total of 74 people since April 30, when soldiers stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the holiest of Sikh shrines. Authorities ordered the raid, the second against the temple, to flush out heavily armed Sikh terrorists who were using the sprawling complex as a refuge.

About 1,500 paramilitary troops and state police continued to comb the countryside Friday in search of Sikh terrorists who fled the temple. A government spokesman said the search concentrated along the Pakistan border from Pathankot to Amritsar.