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Sikh Gunmen Kill 24 Hindus, Wound 7 on Punjab Bus

BY RONE TEMPEST
DEC. 1, 1986 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

NEW DELHI —  Sikh terrorists killed 24 Hindu passengers on a public bus Sunday in
the Indian state of Punjab and wounded seven before fleeing on motor scooters,
police officials reported.

The massacre took place near Khuda in the Hoshiarpur district of Punjab, the setting
for a bloody Sikh separatist movement during the last five years. The killings recalled
a similar episode in July, when 15 people were killed on a public bus in Muktsar, also
in Punjab.

Worst This Year

In Sunday’s attack, the worst single terrorist incident in Punjab this year, police
officials said four Sikh terrorists armed with pistols and automatic weapons ordered
all Hindu passengers off a public bus. They then opened fire on the descending
passengers.

In the Muktsar assault four months ago, the killers ordered the Sikh passengers to
leave the bus and then opened fire on the Hindus remaining inside. Like the Muktsar
attack, Sunday’s incident appeared to have been aimed at creating divisions between
the Sikh and Hindu populations.

In an emotional statement Sunday night, Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi

expressed sympathy for the “sorrowing mothers, fathers, wives and children of the
victims.”
“I am with them in this moment of grief, and I resolve with them not to rest until we
have conquered the evil designs of disruptive forces,” Gandhi said. He also called the
attack a “grave provocation to secularism, love and brotherhood, the basic principles
of new, resurgent India.”

Escalation of Violence

In his annual Independence Day speech in August, Gandhi contended that Indian
police and paramilitary units had the Sikh separatists on the run in Punjab. Since
that time, however, the state has seen steadily escalating violence.

Sikhs, all of whom bear the name Singh (Lion), are members of a 500-year-old
reform sect. Sikh men are identifiable by the beards and turbans required by their
faith. Five years ago, fundamentalist elements in the Sikh community began pressing
for a separate homeland, to be called Khalistan, in the area that is now the Indian
Punjab.

Nearly 9 million of India’s 15 million Sikhs live in Punjab, India’s richest agricultural
state. The remaining Sikh population is scattered throughout this nation of more
than 700 million, including 1 million in New Delhi.

Driving Out Hindus

The terrorists’ goal has been to force Sikhs living outside Punjab to move there, while
driving out the state’s 6 million Hindus.

Already, several thousand Hindu refugees from Punjab live in New Delhi.

After the Muktsar killings in July, five people were killed in Hindu-Sikh rioting in
western New Delhi, where most of Punjab’s Hindu refugees live.

New Delhi police were put on full alert Sunday night, with patrols being increased in
the sectors of past rioting.
Meanwhile, Punjab Gov. S.S. Ray called for restraint in the state by Hindus and Sikhs
in the wake of what he called an “act of madness.”

In the last 11 months, according to Punjab’s police director, Julius Ribeiro, more than
450 people have been killed in sectarian strife in Punjab, including more than 400
civilians.

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