NEW DELHI, India -- Sikh gunmen assassinated two members of a right-wing Hindu party and fired on pedestrians early Thursday, provoking a massive sweep by security forces, authorities said.
Cabinet members met in emergency session, placed the army on standby and ordered security forces to go on red alert following the attacks, the first in New Delhi since terrorists killed 14 people in June.
Later Thursday, police defused a powerful bomb five minutes before it was set to explode at noon on a train in a New Delhi train station. Police were alerted to the bomb after a railway employee heard a ticking sound coming from a briefcase abandoned on a train that had just arrived from Calcutta.
No claim of responsibility for the attempted bombing was received, and it was not known whether the planting of the bomb was related to the killings earlier.
Home Minister Buta Singh said Sikh gunmen killed Hans Raj Sethi, 65, a Bharitiya Janata Party representative on the New Delhi city council, and party member Sudarshan Munjal, 53.
The gunmen also opened fire on about 70 people waiting for milk at a city depot early Thursday morning. But their submachine gun jammed, witnesses said, and no one was hurt.
Responsibility for the attacks was claimed by the 'Bhindranwale Tiger Force of Khalistan,' a Sikh terrorist group that said it carried out the fatal attacks in New Delhi June 14, police said.
The group is named for a Sikh zealot who led and died in the militant occupation and subsequent storming by the Indian military of the Golden Temple of Amritsar in June 1984.
Singh, himself a Sikh, said police had arrested one suspect, and were combing the greater New Delhi area for three others.
The Press Trust of India cited official sources as saying Sikh extremists had infiltrated New Delhi and planned several attacks in the capital before Independence Day on Aug. 15.
The report, which could not be independently confirmed, said four militants had come from Pakistan, seven from Canada and three from Britain after receiving advanced weapons training. The militants were said to be clean-shaven to disguise their adherence to Sikhis.
The attackers shot Sethi at 5:40 a.m. as he slept on his balcony in the Kalkaji district, 500 yards from a police station, Singh said.
Munjal was gunned down in his driveway in the same area at about 6 a.m. after a brief struggle with his assailants.
Pamphlets left at Sethi's home demanded the creation of the independent Sikh nation of 'Khalistan' in northern Punjab state, Singh said.
Both victims had called for military rule in the Punjab and other measures against Sikh extremists advocated by their party, whose politicians in Punjab also have been targeted by extremists.
