Sikhs Rampage After ‘Martyrs’ Rally
About 200 Sikh extremists rampaged through the Golden Temple complex Wednesday after a “Martyrs’ Day” rally, killing one volunteer guard with a sword thrust in the back and wounding seven.
The Sikhs, armed with swords, knives, iron bars and bamboo staves, charged into the area immediately around the temple, the sect’s holiest shrine. They were led by the widow of one of the men who assassinated Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
The militants beat the newly recruited volunteer guards and screamed, “Long live Khalistan!”--the name for the separate homeland that Sikh extremists demand in Punjab state, in northwestern India.
About 5,000 people attended the “Martyrs’ Day” rally, part of what Sikhs call “Genocide Week,” commemorating the hundreds of Sikhs killed in the army assault on the shrine June 4-7, 1984. At least 100 soldiers also died in the fighting.
Indira Gandhi, who sent the army into the complex to root out Sikh extremists who were using it as a refuge, was killed by Sikh members of her personal bodyguard five months later.
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