CHANDIGARH, India -- Sikh extremists assassinated an army officer who took part in the 1984 army assault on the Golden Temple and other Sikh religious shrines in northern Punjab state, police said Thursday.
The officer, Lt. Col. Sant Singh Bhullar, was one of eight people killed in attacks by Sikh gunmen across northern Punjab state since Wednesday, police and news reports said. They said 15 others were wounded.
Police said 10 Sikh extremists armed with pistols and a submachine gun late Wednesday burst into Bhullar's home at Gharyal village, near the Sikh holy city of Amritsar, 125 miles northwest of the state capital of Chandigarh.
They said the gunmen opened fire, killing Bhullar and his sister-in-law and wounding his brother, a retired police official, and another unidentified person.
The gunmen left behind a note claiming responsibility for the attack in the name of the Avtar Singh Brahma extremist group, police said. They said the note blamed Bhullar -- also a Sikh -- for 'the desecration of the Sikh historic temple at Mukstar.'
Bhullar entered the Sikh temple at Mukstar, 140 miles west of Chandigarh, during the army's June 1984 campaign against Sikh extremists fighting to establish an independent homeland in Punjab.
An estimated 600 people, mostly Sikhs, were killed during the operation when troops invaded the Golden Temple of Amritsar.
Five months later, two Sikh security men assassinated Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in revenge for her decision to order the assault on Sikhdom's holiest shrine.
Thursday night, Sikh gunmen opened fire at a market in Kartapur, killing one person and injuring six, police said. Kartapur is 90 miles northwest of Chandigarh.
Wednesday, five Sikh extremists entered the residential quarters of the Punjab State Electricity Board near Amritsar and opened fire, killing two people and injuring four, police said.
Police identified the dead as Mohinder Singh and his nephew, Ajit Singh, both Sikhs.
Sikh extremists last year killed five electricity board workers and officials believe the attacks were aimed at forcing the state into providing uninterrupted power to farmlands. Agriculture is Punjab's main industry and is dominated by Sikhs.
Officials said Punjab Chief Minister Surjit Singh Barnala flew to New Delhi late Thursday to meet with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in a fresh bid to solve the problem of Sikh extremists.
In other incidents Wednesday, gunmen killed a Hindu priest at his village in Faridkot district in the west of the state, and killed another man and wounded three people in Tehpur, 85 miles northwest of Chandigarh, news reports said.
They said two suspected extremists also shot and killed a Hindu identified as Vijay Kumar at his home near Gurdaspur, 220 miles northwest of Chandigarh.
