Word: sikhs
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...novel, in fact, begins with a big bang: the blowing up, by Sikh terrorists, of a jumbo jet, Flight AI-420 from Bombay to London, at 29,002 feet over the English Channel. Two passengers, cartwheeling and conversing, plummet earthward. One is Gibreel Farishta, India's most popular movie star, who is in disguise and fleeing his fame after suffering a life-threatening illness and discovering in the process that there is no God. The other is Saladin Chamcha, a prosperous performer of voice-overs for commercials on British television, returning to his adopted land after a melancholy visit...
Nearly three years after they were sentenced to death for the 1984 assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, gunman Satwant Singh, 25, and conspirator Kehar Singh, 53, were hanged last week in a New Delhi jail. Satwant Singh was one of the two Sikh bodyguards who shot Mrs. Gandhi; the other was killed in the shootout that followed. Five months earlier the Prime Minister had ordered the Indian army to rout Sikh terrorists holed up in the Golden Temple at Amritsar, Sikhdom's holiest shrine. Said an unrepentant Satwant: "I wish that I am born again and again...
...head off retaliation by Sikh extremists, the government stepped up security in the capital and three northern states, including the Sikh stronghold of Punjab. The cremated ashes of the executed were temporarily locked away. To little avail. In the Punjab village of Badowal, militant bands of Sikhs raided the homes of Hindu workers, apparently selected at random, killing at least ten by gunfire...
...Atlantic off the coast of Ireland in June 1985, killing all 329 people aboard. The subsequent investigation, aided by the underwater recovery of the plane's flight recorder, or "black box," determined that a bomb in the forward cargo hold had blown off the front section of the aircraft. Sikh extremists were suspected of the crime, but no one was ever charged. In the case of the Pan Am crash, Kyd said, "sabotage cannot be ruled...
Though the possibility of storming the temple was not ruled out, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi seemed hesitant. His mother and predecessor, Indira Gandhi, had ordered the move in 1984, and it resulted in her assassination by Sikhs. Yet the new standoff probably ended the Prime Minister's policy of appeasement. Since Gandhi freed 45 imprisoned Sikh militants two months ago, some 550 people have been killed in terrorist-related violence...