Word: hindus
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Responsibility for the new wave of killings was claimed by the Dashmesh Regiment, a previously unrecognized group of Sikh terrorists that counts moderate Sikhs as well as Hindus and the government among its sworn enemies. The Dashmesh, which may be connected with the fanatical Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, has vowed to murder one political figure a day until the government lifts a ban imposed late last month on a radical Sikh student organization...
Resistance to Sikh militancy from Hindus in the Punjab and the neighboring state of Haryana has raised the latest violence to alarming levels. Within the past two months, at least 88 people have died and almost 250 have been wounded in frenzied clashes. In one instance, Sikh extremists threw a grenade into a Hindu religious festival in Amritsar. Three people were killed, 51 injured. The Hindus quickly became an outraged mob, charging the police and accusing them of favoring the Sikhs. Unable to contain the crowd with their long bamboo poles, police opened fire with tear gas and finally...
...their own state. In 1966 they were given Punjab by the federal government. Although that state has India's richest, most fertile land, the Sikhs still felt their portion was too small compared with that of neighboring Haryana, the state created at the same time for the Hindus. Therefore, the Akali Dal Party, the political arm of the Sikhs, began an insistent drumbeat of peaceful protest. In 1973 the Akalis passed a resolution setting out various religious and political demands, among them that Punjab's capital, Chandigarh, be made a Sikh capital exclusively, and Amritsar a holy city...
...years ago, an extreme right-wing Sikh faction emerged, thus turning the protest aggressive and radical. Its fanatical leader, Sant Jarnail Bhindranwale, 36, now commands at least 1,000 armed followers from the most sacred room of the Golden Temple. Hindus have begun to fear that the demands of the more heavily armed Sikhs will be met as Bhindranwale's movement gains momentum. Even when Gandhi assured them that they would not be let down, Hindus organized to combat the Sikh threat...
...February Hindus in Haryana staged then-most violent assaults yet. A mob of 5,000 quickly grew to 8,000, attacking however many Sikhs they could find. In one instance half a dozen Sikh prisoners were held immobile and their beards and hair shorn as Hindus hooted and yelled. "There goes your hair power," cried out one Hindu demonstration leader, referring to the Sikh belief that spiritual power derives from long hair. Their heads shaved to the scalp, faces no longer covered with luxuriant beards, Sikhs lay in the street, blasphemed, humiliated and scorned. Last week, in an atmosphere...