Word: sikhs
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...India's 15 million Sikhs, the city of Amritsar is a sacred place, and its holiest sanctuary is the Golden Temple, a resplendent 72-acre compound that is known to the faithful as the City of Joy. These days it more closely resembles a city of death. Inside the temple compound, fierce Sikh warriors wield submachine guns, guarding against encroachment by government security forces. Outside, the security men keep a nervous vigil, all too aware that the bodies of murdered comrades often turn up in the warren of tiny streets around the shrine...
Thus has Amritsar, in the northwestern state of Punjab, become the center of a bitter feud between Sikhs and Hindus. Distinguished by their traditional beards and turbans, the Sikhs follow their own casteless, monotheistic religion, and over the past 15 months those in the Punjab have mounted a determined drive for greater autonomy from New Delhi. The more the government of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi has resisted, the more savage the Sikh campaign has become. Last month six men hijacked a night bus at gunpoint, herded eleven Hindu men into a field and, with cold-blooded efficiency, shot...
These outbursts prompted New Delhi to impose President's rule, effectively removing power from local authorities. More than 3,000 government troops in Amritsar were then licensed to shoot on sight, arrest without warrants and even penetrate traditionally off-limits Sikh sanctuaries (a step they have yet to take). But the violence has not abated. Two weeks ago, 17 were killed and 133 wounded when terrorists derailed a crowded train. Since the bloodshed began last year, more than 150 people have been killed, and 150,000 Sikhs have been arrested...
...Lahore's Central Station, Sikh and Hindu refugees from North or West Punjab were mobbed on the platform, often stabbed to death and their few belongings looted. A major incident involved a big convoy carrying perhaps 1,000 from Sialkot to Amritsar. The convoy was stopped and attacked at the Ravi River bridge. Hundreds were stabbed to death and other hundreds wounded...
...insensitive to the public welfare. In addition, there are powerful local controversies. In Andhra Pradesh, for instance, the movie star turned politician N.T. Rama Rao won a stunning victory for his new Telugu Desam party, advocating increased powers for the state's Telugu majority. In Delhi, many Sikhs vowed to boycott last weekend's elections, thereby showing their support for the movement that is advocating greater autonomy for the rich agricultural state of Punjab, the Sikh homeland...