AMRITSAR, India -- A Sikh separatist group claimed responsibility Thursday for the ambush slayings of four policemen in Punjab, and Sikh militants set fire to five buses to protest arrests of members of their organization.
A man identifying himself as Gen. Labh Singh of the Khalistan Commando Force telephoned news organizations in Amritsar, about 240 miles northwest of New Delhi, and said the paramilitary police officers were killed Wednesday night to avenge the slayings of Sikh youths by security forces.
Four members of a police patrol were shot and killed by Sikh extremists with semi-automatic weapons who fired from a field near the village of Sheron, 20 miles south of Amritsar, officials said. A fifth man was wounded.
The Khalistan Commando Force is among the most notorious of the Sikh separatist groups fighting to create an independent Sikh nation in Punjab state. Extremist violence has claimed hundreds of lives in Punjab this year.
Activists from a faction of the once-outlawed All India Sikh Student Federation set fire to three state-owned buses in the district around Amritsar and two in the neighboring Gurdaspur district. The buses were burned as part of a protest of arrests of some group members under national security laws.
