India Troops Close In on Extremists

AMRITSAR, India — Elite security forces closed in on Sikh extremists in the Golden Temple complex Tuesday, capturing two towers and a dining hall that adjoin the inner sanctum of Sikhism’s holiest site, police said.

An unknown number of militants remain inside.

K.P.S. Gill, chief of the Punjab state police, said the towers overlooking the gold-domed temple were taken Tuesday evening but “operations still are continuing in the basement connecting the towers.”

The commando raid was the first major penetration of the temple complex. The minarets are attached to the dining hall on the eastern flank of a pool surrounding the gold-domed inner sanctum.

Sikh gunmen had used the towers as vantage points to fire at police and paramilitary troops who besieged the temple complex May 9 after the wounding of a paramilitary commander.

More than 30 people have been killed since the assault began.

Police have said they were determined to end the use of the 400-year-old temple as a fortified base for extremists fighting for an independent Sikh homeland. Sikhs make up 2% of India’s 800 million people and claim discrimination by the majority Hindus.

In apparent retaliation for the continuing assault on the temple, gunmen killed 44 people in attacks across a wide area of western Punjab on Monday, police said. On Tuesday, 15 more people were killed in Punjab, the United News of India reported.