Punjab Extremists Murder Politician Opposing Sikh State
CHANDIGARH, India — Extremists in Punjab on Thursday shot to death a prominent Communist politician known for his outspoken opposition to the campaign for a separate Sikh state, police said.
A senior police official said that Darshan Singh Canadian, 80, was killed by two gunmen as he rode a bicycle in Mahilpur village in Punjab’s Hoshiarpur district.
Canadian, a leader of the Communist Party of India, took his name from a stay in Canada in the 1920s when he worked as an activist with the Canadian Communist Party.
The police official said the politician had apparently been marked for assassination because of his opposition to the extremist campaign for an independent Sikh nation, called Khalistan--the Land of the Pure.
The attack followed the killing in the Sikh holy city of Amritsar of a policeman involved in anti-extremist operations.
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