Bombs in 4 India Cities Kill 8; Sikhs Blamed
Bombs believed planted by Sikh separatists exploded in four cities in Punjab state Friday, killing eight people and injuring more than 50, police said.
Three other people were shot to death in different attacks in the northern state, where militant Sikhs are waging a war for an independent homeland. More than 230 people have been killed this year in violence blamed on Sikhs.
Four bombs exploded in or near courthouse compounds in the cities of Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Patiala and Hoshiarpur. Three people were killed in Patiala, two in Gurdaspur, two in Hoshiarpur and one in Amritsar, police said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
The militants charge that India’s 16 million Sikhs suffer economic and religious discrimination under the government of overwhelmingly Hindu India, and extremists have been waging a bloody campaign since 1983 to turn predominantly Sikh Punjab into the independent state of Khalistan.
The 230 people killed this year in Punjab include security personnel, suspected police informers, Hindus and moderate Sikhs. The death toll last year was about 1,250 across northern India.
Most of this year’s victims died in gun attacks, and police said Friday’s violence could mark a switch by the extremists.
“The bomb attacks are a change of tactics by the terrorists,” said a police official in the state capital of Chandigarh.
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