AMRISTSAR,Punjab, India - Clashes broke out between
sword-wielding Sikhs on Friday at the Golden Temple in northern India on
the 30th anniversary of an army raid in which hundreds of people were
killed.
At least 10 people were
wounded in the violence at the temple in the city of Amritsar, which is
the holiest shrine in the Sikh religion.
Hundreds of Sikhs had
gathered at the shrine to pay their respects to those killed in the June
6 1984 raid of the temple by Indian troops aimed at flushing out armed
separatists demanding an independent Sikh homeland.
“Today we were supposed to
have a solemn remembrance for the martyrs of 1984 so what has happened
is very sad,” said a spokesman for Sikh outfit Shiromani Akali Dal
(Amritsar) whose supporters were involved in the clashes.
“The Temple has once again been dishonoured today,” the spokesman Prem Singh Chandumajra told reporters.
Television footage showed two
groups of Sikhs sporting blue and saffron turbans chasing each other
with swords on the marbled staircase of the revered shrine in Punjab
state.
The clashes
allegedly broke out after members of Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar)
insisted they be allowed to speak on the microphone first.
“Members of a radical outfit
confronted the temple’s task force, triggering the fight. Some 10 people
have been injured, two of them are being treated in hospital,” a police
officer in charge of temple safety told AFP.
He said the situation was now under control with extra security deployed inside the temple. At least 400 people were killed in the army’s infamous Operation Blue Star.
The army’s operation enraged Sikhs who accused the troops of desecrating the faith’s holiest shrine.
India’s prime minister Indira Gandhi was shot dead by her own Sikh bodyguards in October 1984 in revenge for the operation. Her assassination triggered
mass anti-Sikh riots in which some 3,000 people were killed, many of
them on the streets of New Delhi.
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