Sikh Rebels Gun Down Officer; Temple Raided

Militant Sikhs shot dead a policeman trying to rescue a colleague in the Golden Temple on Saturday and later hundreds of policemen stormed into Sikhdom’s holiest shrine.

The Press Trust of India news agency said four policemen were wounded in a gun battle after they entered the Amritsar temple to rescue a colleague seized by the militants. One later died in the hospital.

Hundreds of armed policemen raced into the temple to bring the four wounded men to safety. They withdrew later, but political observers said their action could add to mounting tensions in Punjab.

4 Police Fired On

Police sources in Chandigarh, the state capital, said four policemen in plainclothes were fired on and wounded inside the temple complex by Sikh extremists.

The action occurred days after Punjab’s Sikh chief minister, Surjit Singh Barnala, said in newspaper interviews that he would not allow police to storm the temple.

Barnala cut short a visit to the western Punjab town of Bhatinda and returned to Chandigarh, saying the sanctity of religious places must be maintained.

India’s 14 million Sikhs regard the temple area as sacred and the entry of police as an affront to their faith.

In June, 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ordered troops to enter the temple to flush out Sikh extremists holed up there, and at least 1,200 people were killed in the gun battle between the armed extremists and the troops.

Gandhi’s two Sikh bodyguards gunned her down four months later to avenge the Indian army action.

It was the first time uniformed police had entered the shrine since June of last year when sword-weilding militants demanding an independent homeland for Sikhs stabbed a temple guard to death.

Political observers in New Delhi said the action could aggravate further the political problems of Barnala as well as Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Sikh militants have vowed to bring down the government of Barnala in a continuing tussle between extremists and moderates for the polical control of Punjab.

Barnala Excommunicated

The Sikh high priests excommunicated Barnala from their faith after he refused to dismantle the ruling faction of the Akali Dal party.

The priests wanted all factions dismantled so that a united party could be formed in the hope that it would have a better chance of bargaining with Gandhi on the Sikhs’ political demands.

Police said about 300 paramilitary security forces armed with rifles and automatic weapons stormed the complex to fetch out their wounded colleagues.

They said the trouble was sparked by militant students who seized an off duty policeman who had gone to pay his respects to Darshan Singh, chief priest of the Akal Takht, the seat of spiritual authority.

Punjab has become Gandhi’s biggest domestic problem with no political solution in sight. He has refused to consider a separate homeland for Sikhs to be called Khalistan, or the Land of the Pure.

Extremists have continued their campaign of violence and so far this year 145 people have been killed in the state.