AMRITSAR, India -- Sikh extremists killed at least six people and wounded five others in a series of strikes Sunday around Punjab state, including an attack on a group of Hindus near the Golden Temple of Amritsar, police said.
At least one extremist was killed and a paramilitary police officer wounded in one of the strikes, police said.
The first incident occurred early Sunday in the village of Kalchian, 25 miles southeast of Amritsar, when four Sikh gunmen burst into the homes of two members of the Communist Party of India, police said.
The gunmen forced the two to lead them to the home of the village leader, who was rousted from his bed.
The trio was herded into the courtyard of the official's home and shot with automatic weapons. The Communist Party members died instantly and the village chief succumbed to his wounds later, police said.
Members of the Marxist-led party, one of India's two communist parties, have been targeted by Sikh extremists because it has been actively campaigning against their goal of establishing in Punjab the independent Sikh nation of 'Khalistan,' or 'Land of the Pure.'
Police said the village leader was killed because he participated last September in an anti-Khalistan rally organized by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's Congress (I) Party.
After the slayings, the gunmen went to the nearby village of Tothian and shot dead a police constable in his home, police said.
They said the killers belonged to the Khalistan Commando Force, one of the most active of the Sikh militant groups that have killed about 400 people this year. Victims include members of Punjab's minority Hindu community, moderate Sikhs, officials, security personnel and police informers.
On Sunday afternoon, police said, three Sikhs carrying submachine guns fired on a group of Hindus playing cards in the Dhab Wasti Ram area of Amritsar, near the Golden Temple, Sikhdom's holiest shrine and a haven for extremists.
Two people were killed and five injured, police said. Witnesses reported that the gunmen fled on foot in the direction of the Golden Temple.
Security forces cordoned off the area and began a house-to-house hunt for the killers.
In another incident, police said three extremists ambushed a paramilitary police patrol in Sirhali, about 20 miles south of Amritsar, wounding one officer with automatic weapons fire.
The patrol returned fire, killing one attacker. His accomplices fled, police said.
