Word: punjab
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...week's end the violence had not yet subsided, and the Indian army extended its 24-hour curfew in most of the northwestern state of Punjab. Several hundred Bhindranwale loyalists who had managed to escape the siege of the temple continued to wage hit-and-run attacks against troops in Amritsar. They also looted shops, set fires and killed civilians. An additional 100 Sikh extremists surfaced in Rajasthan, a state near the Pakistani border, where they called upon Sikh members of the army to rebel. Some of them did defect, while other Sikhs apparently donned army uniforms...
Agitation by both moderate and extremist Sikh factions over the past two years had brought violence in Punjab to alarming levels. In the past months alone, more than 300 people had died in Sikh-inspired violence. At the same time, tensions from last month's rioting among Hindus and Muslims in Bombay had built to such a degree that politicians began questioning Mrs. Gandhi's control over the country. There was speculation that further instability could cause her governing Congress (I) Party to suffer a serious setback in the national elections scheduled to be held by next January...
Sikh outrage at the assault on the temple echoed throughout India and around the world. Ignoring curfew laws, hundreds of Sikhs rioted in Punjab; they also caused havoc in a number of Indian cities. In New Delhi angry Sikhs demanded Bhindranwale's body for cremation and vowed to keep his legend alive. "If one Bhindranwale dies," Sikhs at a New Delhi demonstration shouted, "a thousand are born." Two militants brandishing swords at tacked the Indian consulate in Vancouver, Canada, leaving it a shambles. Security was increased around Indian missions in the U.S., Canada, Britain, West Germany, The Netherlands...
...crisis came to a head when, in an effort to press home its demands for religious and regional autonomy, the Sikhs' Akali Dal Party announced that it would begin to block grain shipments to the rest of India from Punjab, which is the nation's breadbasket. The action would have cut off 65% of the country's crucial grain reserves, threatening widespread famine...
...Sunday the government ordered a 24-hour curfew, and told all journalists and photographers to leave Punjab. (Authorities later confiscated the film of those who had refused to comply.) Roads across the state borders and the airports were closed, trains and buses stopped running, and telephone and telegraph wires were cut. The usually thriving Punjab came to a halt, cut off from the rest of the world. About 4,000 government troops surrounded the Golden Temple and ordered out the 3,000 Sikhs who live there, as well as the crowds that enter daily for worship. Many heeded the warnings...