CHANDIGARH, India -- Sikh extremist gunmen assassinated a judge in Punjab state Monday, and in New Delhi alert passengers foiled a Sikh attempt to blow up a bus with a briefcase bomb, officials said.
Officials in the Punjab capital of Chandigarh said Additional District and Sessions Judge R.P. Gaind was shot four times by two Sikh gunmen in a store in Jullundur as his wife and daughter stood outside.
They said Gaind had received death threats from Sikh extremists after presiding three years ago over a dispute between Sikhs and Hindus involving a Hindu temple in Jullundur, 40 miles northwest of Chandigarh.
Gaind, 50, had gone into a store opposite his home in the Lajpat Market area to make a telephone call, officials said. The two assassins, armed with 9mm semi-automatic pistols followed him, opened fire and escaped on a motor scooter.
Gaind's wife and daughter began screaming and a passing city official loaded the bleeding jurist into his car and rushed him to a hospital, where he died.
Following the shooting, security forces were placed on alert across predominantly Sikh Punjab, where more than 450 people -- mostly Hindus - have been slain this year by Sikh extremists fighting to create the independent nation of 'Khalistan.'
Officials said the legal dispute that prompted the death threats against Gaind involved the Sodhal Mandir, a Hindu temple. A room in the shrine had been used for worship by Sikhs, whose religion is an offshoot of Hinduism.
Members of Jullundur's Sikh community claimed part of the building containing the room should be converted into a 'gurdwara,' or Sikh temple. Hindus and Sikhs fought a number of street clashes over the issue.
To resolve the disagreement, Gaind appointed an independent receiver to oversee the temple.
Because of the threats on Gaind's life, officials gave him a bodyguard and transferred him to the city of Hoshiapur, where he tried cases involving Sikh extremists.
He was sent back to Jullundur two months ago to resume normal judicial duties. His wife and daughter joined him earlier Monday, but his bodyguard was not with him when he was gunned down.
In New Delhi, police said suspected Sikh extremists tried to blow up a packed Delhi Transport Corp. bus with a briefcase bomb.
Two Sikhs, identified by their turbans and beards and said to be in their 20s, left the briefcase behind when they got off the vehicle in the city'snorthern Kashmiri Gate area.
Alert passengers noticed the briefcase and informed police, who summoned an army bomb disposal squad, which defused the device, police said.
The Press Trust of India news agency said the bomb 'could have ripped the bus apart taking a heavy toll of life.'
Police asked the public not to touch any suspicious objects.
A police official said the incident came after a number of bomb threats and the discovery of several crude explosive devices in the Indian capital in the past several weeks.
Last week, a little girl found a bomb resembling a cricket ball at a Hindu temple. Her parents told police and the device was blown up by a disposal squad, an official said.
Gaind was killed a day after suspected Sikh extremists opened fire near the Sikh holy city of Amritsar on a minibus carrying a police patrol, killing two people and injuring four.
Police said an unknown number of Sikh gunmen ambushed the vehicle Sunday near Chola Sahib, about 28 miles south of Amritsar. They said the bus driver and conductor were killed and three policemen and a civilian were injured.
