NEW DELHI, India -- Sikh gunmen shot dead an Indian opposition leader Monday in the northern city of Amritsar, sparking rioting by members of rival religious groups who set fire to a temple, shops and buses, officials said.
Police fired in the air to stop the clashes. The federal government sent in paramilitary troops and imposed a 48-hour curfew in the Sikhs' holy city, 225 miles northwest of New Delhi.
The renewed violence pushed to 118 the number of people killed since Feb. 14 in religious clashes, terrorist attacks and police shootings in Punjab state, neighboring Haryana state and New Delhi.
Officials said the latest clashes broke out after two Sikh gunmen opened fire on a shop in Amritsar owned by Harbans Lal Khanna, a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party and a former legislator, killing him, his bodyguard and a customer.
The assailants grabbed the bodyguard's semi-automatic rifle and fled to a waiting jeep after scaling the wall of a nearby hospital.
Officials said thousands of Hindus and Sikhs poured into the streets following the shooting, hurling rocks at each other and setting fire to a temple in the Gopal Nagar area, four shops and numerous buses and vehicles.
The rampaging residents tried to stop firemen from putting out the blazes and police fired several rounds into the air to disperse the mobs, the official reports said. No injuries were reported.
The Punjab state government also imposed a curfew in Jalandhar, 50 miles southeast of Amritsar, as a precautionary measure.
A telephone caller to Indian news agencies said a secret organization called 'Dashmesh Regiment' was responsible for the shooting of Khanna.
The group is believed to be a breakaway faction of the recently banned All-India Sikh Students Federation, which is blamed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's government for Sikh terrorism.
The same group claimed responsibility for the March 28 killing of a New Delhi Sikh leader, Harbans Singh Manchanda, who is loyal to Mrs. Gandhi.
Leaders of Khanna's Bharatiya Janata party, which represents mostly Hindus, has called for a general strike Wednesday in three states and New Delhi to protest the Sikh killings.
On Sunday, the leadership of the party accused the government of making a compromise offer to militant Sikhs that 'smacked of appeasement' and could be seen as an 'act of surrender to threats,' the United News of India said.
The government pledged to amend article 25 of the constitution, which lumps Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs together in a single phrase.
Sikh militants want the document to reflect a separate identity for the Sikhs, who have waged a 20-month campaign to secure greater political and economic autonomy in the northern state of Punjab.
