kumarv@paul.rutgers.edu (kumar vadaparty) (06/18/91)
======================================================================== From: kumarv@paul.rutgers.edu (kumar vadaparty) Source: APNEWS ======================================================================== LUDHIANA, India (AP) _ Army units swept across Punjab state today to try to halt further election-related violence by Sikh militants, who massacred scores of people in weekend attacks on two trains. Police said 126 people, mainly Hindus, were slain in the Saturday attacks, the militants' deadliest strikes in their 9-year-old insurgency. Officials said the attacks pushed the death toll of the Sikhs' secessionist campaign above 2,000 this year. Militant Sikhs, who seek independence for the northern Punjab state, have vowed to stop elections scheduled for Saturday. The militants have killed at least 21 candidates for Punjab's state and national elections. The rest of India completed balloting Saturday, but Punjab elections were delayed until security forces could be brought to the northern state to supervise voting. The army was given sweeping powers to search and arrest in the days before the voting. The deputy comissioner of this mainly Hindu industrial town, Surjit Singh Channi, said Sunday rescue officials counted 80 bodies from the train attacks, but the local police chief said at least 126 people were killed. Local reporters also said the death toll was much higher than 80. The attacks occurred within 10 minutes of each other on different railroad lines leading into this industrial town, Police Superintendent Anil Sharma said. At least one of the cars attacked was headed to a major Hindu pilgrimage center. About a dozen militants then entered the cars and killed the passengers in a blaze of automatic gunfire. The first attack occurred when the train was seven miles southwest of Ludhiana. The second train was raided when it was nine miles south of the city. ``The militants positioned themselves on the two doors of the coaches and fired indiscriminately,'' Sharma said. The militants separated the men from the women and children and gunned down the huddled men, survivors said. But the victims included some women and children, Sharma said. At least 78 passengers were killed on the first train and 48 people on the second train, Sharma said. Forty-eight people were wounded. ``My grandson tried to run toward the door. He was killed by the militants. They also killed my two sons,'' said Kumari Darshna, a 70-year-old Hindu woman. A reporter for Press Trust of India news agency said he saw bodies of four people lying in a blood-soaked coach with bread clutched in their hands. ``Their end came while they were having dinner. Compartments were littered with torn clothes, shoes, sandals and food,'' the reporter said. He said many bodies were found in the fields along the tracks, indicating passengers were shot while fleeing. He said the militants escaped through the fields under cover of darkness. Police claimed to have killed at least 900 militants in the year. Sikhs comprise 2 percent of India's 844 million people, but they are in a majority in Punjab, a rich farming state. Sikh militants claim their community is discriminated against by the Hindus, who represent 82 percent of the country's people. In September 1988, militants attacked a train near the city of Amritsar and killed 10 people. Attacks on buses in Punjab had been fairly common until authorities began posting armed security guards on all buses in the state. -- ======================================================================== Edited to suit the needs of mns ========================================================================