Word: amritsar
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Punjab city of Amritsar, an uneasy truce was holding at week's end between militant and moderate Sikh groups that had earlier exchanged gunfire at their most sacred shrine, the Golden Temple. The groups were fighting for the right to rebuild a revered part of the temple complex called the Akal Takht, which was severely damaged in a June 1984 siege by the Indian army. That military action, in which at least 600 Sikhs died, inflamed unrest and ultimately led to Indira Gandhi's assassination...
...Amritsar, Punjab, there was gladness as Sikh militants celebrated Mrs. Gandhi's death. At the Sikhs' holiest shrine, the Golden Temple, militants shouted, "Indira Gandhi deserved to die!" They presented medals and gifts of cash to families of the two gunmen accused of the slaying, one of whom was killed by guards during the attack. The surviving gunman and two conspirators also charged with the murder are now on trial in New Delhi...
Longowal's death was seen as a major setback to the impressive start that had been made in mending relations between the Sikh community and the central government, which had been severely strained even before the army assault on the Golden Temple in Amritsar last year. In the month since the settlement was signed, Punjab had been unusually quiet, giving Gandhi the confidence to announce elections for Sept. 22. After Longowal's death, Gandhi changed the date to Sept. 25 to allow for the mourning period. The elections will be the first in five years and will end nearly...
...Punjab, a northwestern state in which the Sikhs, a relatively prosperous 2% minority in greater India, have a slight majority. Tensions came to a head last June after armed Sikh radicals, many of them demanding an independent state to be called Khalistan, barricaded themselves in the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Sikhdom's holiest shrine. After a week-long standoff between the rebels and the government, the Indian army stormed the temple, at a cost of some 600 lives...
Hope glimmered faintly last week that the often bloody problem of autonomy- seeking Sikhs in Punjab, an Indian state on the border with Pakistan, may finally be easing a bit. Nearly ten months after the Indian army stormed the sacred Golden Temple in Amritsar, the central shrine of the 15 million Sikhs, India's Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi announced the release of eight prominent Sikh leaders taken into custody at the time of the raid, in which 600 were killed on both sides. Those freed included Sant Harchand Singh Longowal, president of the Akali Dal, the Sikh political party. Longowal...