Gunman shoots at Sikh leader outside India's Golden Temple; no one harmed

Reuters

04 December, 2024, 08:forty five pm

Closing modified: 04 December, 2024, 08:52 pm

A gunman shot at a effectively-known Sikh politician outside the Golden Temple in northern India on Wednesday sooner than police caught and arrested him, in a dread at the in model residing that witnessed a bloody clash between Sikh militants and troops four many years ago.

The politician, Sukhbir Singh Badal, primitive deputy chief minister of Punjab disclose, became once unhurt.

The shooter, identified by police as Narain Singh, 68, became once viewed in TV pictures from data company ANI strolling to the entrance of the temple in Amritsar metropolis, the holiest shrine for Sikhs, and stealthily striking off a gun from his pocket to fireplace at Badal.

He became once stopped and pushed away by a policeman in plainclothes who became once standing next to Badal, but no longer sooner than he fired a stray shot, which did no longer hit somebody, police talked about.

“Attributable to the alertness and deployment of our police, this attack try became once foiled,” Amritsar Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar educated newshounds, at the side of that the gunman had been arrested.

The explanation for the attack became once no longer straight sure.

Badal, a primitive ally of Top Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, became once sitting outside the Golden Temple doing a penance ritual imposed on him by the Akal Takht, Sikhism’s very most life like physique.

Sikhism is indubitably one of many country’s major religions, and Sikhs carry out nearly 2% of India’s 1.4 billion population.

In 1984, then-Top Minister Indira Gandhi sent the militia into the Golden Temple to evict armed Sikh separatist leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his supporters, infuriating Sikhs across the area.

A few months later, Gandhi became once assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards at her house in Fresh Delhi.