Gandhi to Fence Pakistani Border to Deny Arms to Sikhs in Punjab
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on Sunday ordered a 330-mile barbed wire fence built along India’s Punjab state border with Pakistan to thwart the flow of arms to Sikh militants, who last week killed at least 111 people, an official said.
Police said three Sikh militants killed the headman of Bhoywal village in Punjab’s Amritsar district late Saturday, bringing to 111 the number of fatalities since March 27. It was the worst week of violence by separatists fighting to create the separate nation of Khalistan in the northern state.
In an emergency meeting beginning late Saturday and ending early Sunday, Gandhi decided to build a barbed wire fence along Punjab’s 330-mile Indo-Pakistani frontier, a government spokesman said. Other border areas would not be affected.
India says that weapons for the Sikh militants flow into Punjab from Pakistan.
‘Obvious Conclusion’
“Where can the weapons come from?” asked government spokesman Ramamoham Rao rhetorically in a telephone interview. “The conclusion is very obvious to me. The route is across the Pakistan border.”
He said the fence will be built “where practicable,” indicating that construction could be hindered in marshy areas of the border zone, which is mostly flat farmland.
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