CHANDIGARH, India -- Suspected Sikh extremists shot and killed a former state Cabinet minister from Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's Congress (I) Party and his driver and set fire to their bodies, police said Saturday.
In another incident in violence-torn northern Punjab state, police said a Sikh separatist leader escaped from their custody during an extremist ambush.
They said the bullet-ridden and charred bodies of Tarlochan Singh Riyasti, 59, a Congress (I) leader and former Punjab government minister, and his driver were found Saturday in their car outside Ludhiana city, 180 miles north of New Delhi.
Police in the state capital of Chandigarh said they suspect the men were shot by Sikh extremists who then set doused the bodies in gasoline and set fire to them.
Riyasti was the second former state minister to be assassinated in Punjab within a week. Punjab Congress (I) vice president and one-time state labor minister Jagat Ram was killed by Sikh separatist gunmen on Monday.
More than 1,000 people died in northern India last year in violence blamed on Sikh extremists fighting to turn predominantly Sikh Punjab into the independent nation of 'Khalistan.' The death toll this year has surpassed 40.
Meanwhile, police escorting captured separatist leader Satnam Singh Bawa were ambushed by extremists late Thursday near the Pakistan border and Bawa escaped in the confusion, officers said. They said there were no casualties in the attack.
They said Bawa had told police during interrogation of several extremist weapons caches in Punjab and was leading police to the hideouts when the incident occurred.
A self-styled general of the Khalistan Commando Force, one of the largest Sikh separatist groups, Bawa was captured during a shootout in New Delhi in August. He was allegedly involved in India's largest ever bank robbery -- the theft of Indian currency worth $4.5 million in Punjab last year.
