Word: sikhs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Sant Harchand Singh Longowal arrived at the Kamowal temple in the Punjabi village of Sherpur in high spirits. The soft-spoken president of the Akali Dal, the Sikh political party, had just come from Chandigarh, where he had persuaded two leading Sikhs to withdraw their opposition to an agreement that he and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had signed on July 24, ending three years of Sikh confrontation with the government in New Delhi. Earlier in the day, Longowal had announced that the party would contest all seats in the Sept. 22 elections for the state assembly and 13 seats...
That afternoon, Longowal, 53, again made an impassioned plea to the 5,000 people in the temple for Sikhs to rally round the agreement and live in harmony with their Hindu neighbors. He had just finished speaking when two young Sikhs suddenly rose from their seats, pulled out revolvers and fired repeatedly at Longowal. As his bodyguards fired back at the assailants, another young man sprang forward and pumped more bullets into the fallen Sikh leader. Longowal was rushed to the hospital. That evening he died without regaining consciousness, yet another victim of the violence that has claimed some...
Once again, the country was in shock over an assassination. In an emotional message to the nation, Gandhi, whose mother, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was gunned down by two Sikh bodyguards last October, called Longowal's slaying "a tragedy not just for Punjab but for the whole country. A man of peace has fallen to the bullets of assassins," he said. The next day Longowal was cremated in his native village with full state honors. The funeral procession included mourners from every faith and high government officials. Conspicuously absent were members of the radical faction of the Akali...
...terror bomb scenario came mainly from Indian officials, who suspected that the incident might have been connected to the baggage explosion in Tokyo. The link, they suggested, might be two Sikh extremists, Ammand Singh, 32, and Lal Singh, 25. The two men are wanted by the FBI in connection with an alleged conspiracy to kill Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi during his visit to the U.S. last month. Ammand Singh, according to Indian officials quoted in the Toronto Globe and Mail, had flown to Toronto before the ill-fated Air India flight set course for London, while Lal Singh had traveled...
...there confirmation that the two Singhs booked on those flights were the Singhs sought by the FBI; all Sikh men use the name Singh. "There is still no definitive evidence linking (the fugitive Singhs) to the bombings," said Joseph Valiquette, an FBI spokesman in New York City. Such reservations were upstaged, however, by reports of a mercenary training camp in Birmingham where, according to the school's director, a man named Lal Singh had taken a course in explosives last November. FBI officials refused to comment on whether the fugitive Lal Singh had attended the school...