1 Held in Massacre of Kashmir Sikhs
Police detained a man in Kashmir on Thursday after survivors of a massacre of 40 Sikhs told police that the suspect had shown the killers the way to their village, a police official said.
The arrest came as thousands of Sikhs wielding iron bars, swords and sticks stormed through Jammu, the winter capital of the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, to protest Monday’s massacre.
Some Sikhs beat policemen on the march to Jammu and demanded retaliation against Pakistani-based Islamic militants blamed for the slaughter.
In New Delhi, the Indian capital, angry Sikh protesters torched two buses. More than 100 police and demonstrators were hurt.
Police Deputy Inspector General Raja Aijaz Ali said it was unlikely that Muhammad Yaqub--picked up Thursday when he visited the Sikh village where the massacre took place--was a member of a Kashmir separatist rebel group. Armed groups backed by Pakistan are fighting to expel the Indian government in Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority state in Hindu-majority India.
Ali said Yaqub, 21, has not been charged in the case and will be questioned today.
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