New Delhi - At least two people were killed and several
injured Monday as violence triggered by the killing of a Sikh leader
in Vienna hit India's northern states of Punjab and Haryana.
Protestors set ablaze train coaches and buses and clashed with
police, resulting in the declaration of curfew in key cities.
Tensions flared in the cities on Sunday night after reports about
the attack in Austria on Sant Niranjan Dass, the head of the Dera
Sach Khand sect, and his deputy Sant Rama Nand.
The sect that adheres to the Ravidass Sabha movement mostly has
followers among the Dalit or low-caste Sikhs.
Armed with swords and sticks, supporters of the sect poured into
the streets in the Jalandhar city, torching vehicles to block road
traffic since Sunday night.
Angry protestors also set railway coaches on fire and attacked a
convoy of the city police chief in Jalandhar, more than 150
kilometres north-west of state capital Chandigarh.
Curfew was soon imposed and the army was deployed to control the
situation in the region Monday, but the violence spread to other main
cities in Punjab.
Curfew was later declared in key cities of Ludhiana, Phagwara,
Hoshiarpur and Kapurthala that witnessed the backlash in which mobs
set afire vehicles and damaged government buildings.
One person was killed and four were injured as army personnel
opened fire in the Lambra village near Jalandhar and another person
was killed after police opened fire on protestors at the Jalandhar
railway station, the PTI news agency reported quoting official
sources.
Shops and commercial establishments were closed following a
general strike call by the local units of the Dera Sach Khand. At
other places, hundreds of Dera supporters armed with rods ransacked
shops to enforce the shutdown.
Groups of stone-pelting men blocked a main highway linking Punjab
and the neighbouring Haryana state. There were reports that
demonstrators had damaged buses in Haryana's commercial city of
Ambala.
As state authorities increased security across the state,
Indian Premier Manmohan Singh said he was deeply distressed over the
violence and appealed for calm and restraint.
'In areas where curfew has been imposed, it is necessary that
people should go back to their homes and allow the security forces to
restore law and order,' he said.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister SM Krishna condemned the clashes in
Vienna and said he had asked Austrian authorities to ensure that the
perpetrators of the 'completely mindless and wanton attack' were
brought to justice.
On Sunday, two key leaders of the sect, Niranjan Dass and Rama
Nand, were among those injured in a fight between rival factions at a
Sikh temple in the Austrian capital.
Rama Nand, 57, succumbed to his injuries overnight. Niranjan Dass
was in stable condition after emergency surgery.
Two of the six attackers, who are mainstream Sikhs, were still in
critical condition Monday, as they had sustained shots in the head
from sect members, Austrian press agency APA reported.
The vice president of the Vienna temple, Kumar Balvinder, said
Sikhs from higher castes disliked that his fellow sect members did
not follow certain rules, such as wearing beards and donning turbans.
There are several Deras, or sects, across the northern states of
Punjab and Haryana.
Mainstream Sikhs often consider those sects as deviating from the
true Sikh religion and practices.
The differences have often resulted in violence.
Clashes between Sikhs and another sect, the Dera Saccha Sauda, left
several injured over the last two years.
Sikhs constitute less than 2 per cent of India's 1.1 billion
people, of which 80.5 per cent are Hindus.
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