CHANDIGARH, India -- Sikh militants in Punjab, putting a moral edge on their bloody campaign for independence, have banned the sale of meat, alcohol and tobacco in a drive to enforce tenets of the Sikh religion.
The new morality has left at least six people dead, some 60 shops in ashes and forced the complete or partial closure of 1,500 businesses across the northern state.
Few retailers have defied the separatists and a new sense of fear is palpable among the minority Hindu community in the state, as well as Sikh store owners.
'We closed our shop one night at 10:30, and the next morning it had been reduced to ashes with all thebottles broken and the cash looted,' said Darshan Lal, a liquor store owner in Ludhiana.
'There is no longer any security in life and business, and the militants are running the state according to their whims,' lamented a nearby vendor, who had also seen his liquor business incinerated.
The campaign started in late March when the Punjab government began its annual auction of liquor licenses. At the same time, the Khalistan Commando Force, one of several outlawed Sikh extremist groups fighting since 1983 for independence for Punjab, issued a 13-point Sikh moral code.
In public places throughout Punjab, posters were slapped on walls calling for an end to dancing and music at weddings, the wearing of non-traditional clothing, and the sale and consumption of meat, alcohol and tobacco. The decree warned offenders would be 'burned alive.'
Police said members of the once-outlawed All India Sikh Students Federation began to impose the dogma. Youths threatened shopkeepers with guns and swords. Retailers who ignored the warnings and kept selling the three items often found their buildings set on fire.
Butchers, liquor stores and tobacconists closed. Restaurants introduced vegetarian menus, tipplers could only surreptitiously sip bootleg liquor and several cigarette salesmen were forced to burn their wares in large public bonfires.
Sikh women have generally supported the ban and adhered to the new rules on fashion, shunning cosmetics and bras and swapping saris, which the militants consider a Hindu form of dress, for the traditional Sikh salwar and kameez costume.
Under the tenets of the Sikh religion, begun in the 17th century as Hindu reform movement, Sikhs are forbidden from taking meat, alcohol and tobacco and from cutting their hair. But only the last stipulation has been strictly adhered to by the overwhelming majority of Sikhs.
But even moderate Sikhs critical of the extremism that has left more than 1,000 people dead in the last 18 months, have begun to show support for the new morality campaign.
'For once the boys are treading a right path to purify the society and build a better nation,' said Raminder Kaur, a housewife. 'This campaign should go on until all the shops are closed.'
The Sikh clergy endorse the new morality.
'The government will lose some revenue from the ban on intoxicants but a healthy society is a better bargain,' Darshan Singh, head priest of the Sikhdoms supreme administrative body, said in the Sikh holy city of Amritsar.
The implications worry treasury officials in the state capital of Chandigarh, who last year collected more than $150 million in liquor taxes.
State Finance Minister Balwant Singh said annual tenders for liquor licenses normally bring in $23 million. This year, nearly 150 licenses have not been taken.
'They are talking about meat and liquor but they have no qualms in quenching their thirst with human blood,' Punjab Chief Minister Surjit Singh Barnala, a moderate Sikh, said of the moralists. 'What they are trying to do is distort a very progressive religion and they will not be allowed to do so.'
The government has tried to fight back, arresting some 500 members of a militant Sikh student group and making it easier for shopkeepers to possess firearms.
But police and officials concede the militants can operate with impunity, it being impossible to guard every shop, particularly when most arson attacks are staged at night.
However, even morality has a price.
Police said some liquor shop owners remain in operation because they pay protection money to the extremists and believe hefty contributions from large liquor retailers have become a major revenue source for separatist organizations.
Small-time shopkeepers tell a different story. a group in Jalandhar city staged a three-day protest against Punjabs 'anarchy and lawlessness,' saying they cannot afford to pay a fee that police demand if they are to guard a shop.
