Sikh Father Spared, Son Killed--Only One Has Beard, Turban

The father survived because he had a full beard and a turban. The son was killed because he did not.

That was the dividing line between life and death in India’s Punjab state when Sikh terrorists slaughtered 22 people on a public bus near this farming community Sunday evening.

Monday, as families of the victims prepared their dead for cremation, the horror of the attack began to come home to this small farming community and to the rest of India, where rioting occurred in several cities, including New Delhi, the Indian capital.

Worst Attack in 5 Years

It was the worst terrorist attack in the five-year history of separatist violence in Punjab, where Sikh separatists are seeking a theocratic homeland for their sect. They call the proposed homeland Khalistan (land of the pure).

A crowded bus carrying 75 passengers between Jullundur and Pathankot was hijacked by six men, who forced the vehicle off the highway and onto a narrow road. They ordered women, children and Sikh men, usually identifiable by the full beards and turbans required by their religion, to get off the bus.

Iqbal Singh, 45, a Sikh with full beard and turban, had boarded the bus in Jullundur with his son, Sukhbir Singh, 18, who chose to cut his hair rather than wear a turban and wore a wispy, black mustache instead of a beard. When the hijackers ordered all Sikhs off the bus, Sikhbir left with his father.

Pistols, Automatic Weapon

As women, children and Sikhs left the bus, the terrorists, armed with pistols and an automatic weapon, began killing the men remaining on board--all of them beardless, which meant to the killers that they were Hindus.

Iqbal Singh related what happened next:

“My son was sitting on the ground next to me with his head looking down” when one of the gunmen noticed that the youth wore neither beard nor turban.

The gunman pointed a pistol at Sukhbir Singh’s head.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“He is my son,” Iqbal said he pleaded. “He is my son.

“In spite of my saying that he was my son, they shot him.”

On Monday, Iqbal cremated his son according to the Sikh faith.

Gunmen Leave Note

In a note left with the driver of the bus, the terrorists claimed to be followers of Manjit Singh Khajala, fugitive leader of the so-called Khalistan Armed Police.

The men said they were taking revenge for the killing of four comrades in November and also an incident in a city near here in which militant Hindus attacked two Sikhs and set fire to their turbans.

The main purpose of Sikh terrorism in recent months has been to divide Punjab’s Sikh and Hindu populations--communities that have been linked for centuries by geography and even by marriage.

So far, they have been successful in frightening only a few thousand Hindus from the state, but the campaign has managed to terrify many sections of Punjab, India’s most prosperous agricultural state.

Bitter Relatives

Interviews Monday with families of Sunday’s massacre victims indicated that more Hindus may be frightened away by that incident. Punjab has approximately 9 million Sikhs and 7 million Hindus.

Some relatives of victims complained bitterly that the Indian government has not done enough to protect the Hindus of Punjab.