2 Sikhs Hanged for Murder of General for Assault on Shrine
NEW DELHI — Two Sikh militants were hanged Friday for killing an army general who ordered Indian troops to storm the holiest Sikh shrine eight years ago.
Harjinder Singh Jinda and Sukhdev Singh were executed at the central jail in Poona, 780 miles south of New Delhi, after losing a last-minute appeal to the Supreme Court on Thursday night, news agencies reported.
About 1,200 people, mostly Sikh guerrillas, died when troops stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar in 1984.
Militants retaliated by persuading Sikh bodyguards to kill Prime Minister Indira Gandhi six months later. The bodyguards were executed for the assassination.
Jinda and Singh told the court they shot and killed retired Gen. Arun S. Vaidya in 1986 because anyone who violated the shrine in Amritsar deserved to die.
Sikhs form barely 2% of India’s 857 million population but constitute a slight majority in Punjab, a prosperous agricultural state bordering Pakistan.
More than 15,000 people have been killed in the past six years in Punjab’s guerrilla war.
Separatists charge that India’s federal government denies the Sikhs their religious and economic rights, a charge the government denies.
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