Sikh Violence at the Golden Temple, Amritsar, India

Thirty years ago, in 1984 the Sikh Golden Temple at Amritsar was raided by the Indian military to flush out Sikh separatists of the Khalistan movement that was led by Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale. The then prime minister Indira Gandhi called in the operation in which many Sikhs got killed resisting the raid.

Last Friday rival groups of Sikhs clashed at the shrine. Ceremonial swords and staffs were swung in anger, resulting in injuries and panic.

The violence broke out after a group of "radical Sikh activists" wanted to brandish their swords and chant slogans calling for a separate Sikh homeland, or Khalistan, according to the Times of India. The newspaper says at least 12 people were injured. Video from the shrine shows tightly packed groups of agitated men wearing orange, yellow or blue turbans, yelling and arguing in the shrine complex as sword fights broke out. As the sound of clanging metal rang out, attendees rushed to get out of the way of the blows. In one sequence that recalled a scene from an old movie, men swung swords at one another as they fought their way up and down a staircase.

You can view the clash at the temple site by clicking here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rohingya crisis

Image
  Rohingya crisis Rohingya families fled violence. But six years later, uncertainty about the future still grips those living in the world’s largest refugee settlement. UNICEF/UN0687978/Spiridonova Updated 8 January 2024 What is the Rohingya crisis?    When hundreds of thousands of terrified Rohingya refugees began flooding onto the beaches and paddy fields of southern Bangladesh in August 2017, it was the children who caught many people’s attention. As the refugees – almost 60 per cent of whom were children – poured across the border from Myanmar into Bangladesh, they brought with them accounts of the unspeakable violence and brutality that had forced them to flee.   Those fleeing attacks and violence in the 2017 exodus joined around 300,000 people already in Bangladesh from previous waves of displacement, effectively forming the world’s largest refugee camp. Six years later, about half a million Rohingya refugee children are living in exi...
Read more