AMRITSAR, India -- Sikh extremists Saturday shot to death an activist of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's ruling party and wounded two bystanders, sparking a riot by 400 party backers who stoned police and torched shops and cars.
An indefinite curfew was slapped on most of the Sikh holy city 250 miles northwest of Delhi to prevent further unrest and reduce tensions.
Officials said two suspected Sikh extremists on a motor scooter drove up to a shop owned by Sudesh Kumar, a Hindu identified as an activist in the prime minister's Congress (I) Party, and opened fire with pistols. Several bullets hit Kumar and two bystanders were wounded.
Doctors at the city's hospital declared Kumar dead on arrival. His killers escaped.
The 'Babbar Khalsa,' one of the main Sikh extremist groups fighting to create the independent nation of 'Khalistan' in the northern state of Punjab, claimed responsibility for the attack in a telephone call to the Press Trust of India.
In a related development, the Press Trust reported a local Congress (I) Party leader, Dr. Balbir Chand, was gunned down Friday night by three Sikh extremists in his home near Kulian in north central Punjab.
More than 500 people, mostly Hindus, have been killed this year in Punjab by separatists of the Sikh religion in what officials believe is a drive to terrify the minority community into fleeing the Sikh-dominated state.
Kumar's slaying prompted an hour-long protest by about 400 Congress Party members who gathered near the victim's shop and first refused - but later agreed -- to surrender his body for a postmortem examination, officials said.
The crowd hurled rocks at police and set fire to cars and shops. It dispersed when officers staged a baton charge.
Officials said a senior police officer was injured in the head by a rock and wounded by a bullet fired by an unknown gunman. No other casualties were reported.
In a nearby area, officials said, paramilitary police were fired on by two Sikh youths. No one was hit and the youths were arrested.
Officials, meanwhile, said security was being tightened in advance of a two-day statewide strike and road and rail blockades called Dec. 29-30 by Sikh groups and supporters to protest the December appeals court confirmation of death sentences for three Sikhs convicted in the October 1984 assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
The protests also were being held to press for the release of Sikhs jailed under national security laws and the reinstatement of Sikhs who deserted the army after troops stormed the Golden Temple of Amritsar in June 1984 to dislodge extremists.
Gandhi was assassinated by her bodyguards in revenge for the attack on the temple, the Sikh's holiest shrine, that left 600 people dead, including 100 army troops.
Sikhism was founded in the 16th century as a mystical, monotheistic alternative to Hinduism and Islam, but developed a militaristic tradition.
