Sikhs Kill 11 in Punjab, Including 6 at a Wedding

CHANDIGARH, India —  Sikh separatists killed 11 people in Punjab state, including six Sikh villagers singing and dancing at a wedding party, police said Wednesday.

About 12 extremists armed with automatic weapons stormed the house of Amrik Singh in Mustaphapur village in the Jalandhar district Tuesday night, said the police spokesman, who commented on condition of anonymity.

Two of the victims at the wedding festivities, one of them the bridegroom, were relatives of Federal Home Minister Buta Singh, the spokesman said. Five other people were wounded in the attack.

The extremists opened fire at the revelers as they were dancing and singing on the eve of the ceremony.

Southeast of Amritsar

The village is 40 miles southeast of Amritsar, the site of the Sikhs’ holiest shrine, the Golden Temple.

Witnesses told a reporter for the United News of India that the terrorists shouted before they fled: “We have done this deed. Go and tell Buta Singh.”

Sikh militants also killed a police inspector and wounded a constable Tuesday night in Patiala district, the spokesman said.

Another report from Batala in the Gurdaspur district said that two brothers were killed by Sikh militants Tuesday.

Wednesday morning, suspected terrorists set off a bomb in Phagwara town, killing a Hindu man and his baby son. His wife and another son were wounded in the attack, police said. Phagwara is about 67 miles south of Amritsar.

The killings brought to at least 678 the number of deaths resulting from Sikh terrorist actions in Punjab.

Sikhs, whose religion is an offshoot of Hinduism, make up a slight majority in Punjab, a northern state. Sikh militants are seeking to form a separate nation in Punjab or obtain greater autonomy. They have been active since 1982.

Discrimination Claimed

Sikh separatists claim they are discriminated against by Hindus, who form the overwhelming majority of India’s 780 million people.

Meanwhile, guerrillas of the “People’s War Group” ambushed a police patrol, killing 10 policemen in a jungle in Andhra Pradesh about 600 miles south of New Delhi, the United News of India reported Wednesday.

Details were not immediately available and police in the remote area could not be contacted by telephone from New Delhi.

The attackers were Maoist revolutionaries, usually peasants, who are fighting for land reform and higher wages.