The Indian Army was called out today to halt Hindu reprisals against Sikhs in the northern state of Haryana after Sikh terrorists killed at least 72 people in attacks on Hindu bus passengers, Indian officials said.
At least six people, including five Sikhs, were said to have been killed across northern India in reprisals for the bus attacks. Dozens were wounded and many stores burned.
Protesters attacked buses and blocked rail and road traffic in Haryana and the neighboring states of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, defying political leaders who called for peace.
The army was deployed in Yamunanagar and five other towns after Hindu mobs attacked Sikhs and their stores, a state official said. Curfews in Several Cities
A curfew was imposed at the Hindu pilgrim center of Rishikesh in Uttar Pradesh, where mobs attacked Sikhs and looted and set fire to their stores. Two people, including a Sikh, were killed there, news agencies reported. The 38 Hindus who were killed in the first bus attack on Monday night were bound for Rishikesh.
The Haryana state official said a curfew was ordered at Sirsa and that police fired tear gas at rioters in Hissar when they tried to torch a Sikh temple. Hissar is near the site of Tuesday night’s killing of 34 bus passengers. At least nine survivors of the second attack were listed in critical condition.
Police said the same group of Sikh terrorists was involved in both attacks, the most brutal since extremism in the Punjab began to grow in the early 1980’s. A search for the killers is continuing but none of them has yet been captured.
”The terrorists have the advantage of surprise and time,” one official said, adding that the ”hard core” among the terrorists numbered between 100 to 150. A ‘Desperate’ Reaction
A note left at the site of Tuesday’s killings identified the attackers as members of the Khalistan Commando Force. Khalistan is the name given by the Sikh extremists to the nation they seek to establish.
The police said the terrorists were reacting ”desperately’ after 28 top extremists had been gunned down by Punjab police in less than a month.
Opposition-led work stoppages to protest the killings were widely observed in Punjab and Haryana and three other areas, including a part of Kashmir. A similar shutdown has been called in New Delhi Thursday.
Angry crowds burned effigies of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in Haryana. In New Delhi, at least three people, including a policeman, were injured in a demonstration outside the residence of Home Affairs Minister Buta Singh. Mr. Singh, the country’s top law enforcement official, is a Sikh.
This story first appeared on NYTimes