BFF-39 India arrests one, blames Pakistan for Punjab grenade attack

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India arrests one, blames Pakistan for Punjab grenade attack

NEW DELHI, Nov 21, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Indian police Wednesday made an arrest
over a grenade attack last week in northern Punjab state that killed three
worshippers as it blamed arch-rival Pakistan for what it called “an act of
terrorism”.

Around 250 devotees of the Nirankari religious sect were praying in
Amritsar last Sunday when a grenade was thrown into the congregation.

The blast killed three people and injured 20 Nirankaris, whose beliefs are
at odds with mainstream Sikhs who dominate in Punjab.

Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh said one suspect had been arrested
and police were searching for the other behind the attack he said was planned
by Pakistan.

“The grenade attack was an act of terrorism,” he said.

“ISI (Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence) is resorting to all these
sort of things.”

A security alert has been sounded across Punjab ahead of Guru Nanak Prakash
Diwas, a day to commemorate the birth of Sikhism’s founder.

The occasion is marked widely across northern India by both Sikhs and
Hindus.

Punjab, which was divided between India and Pakistan when they split after
independence in 1947, has a history of sectarian and separatist violence.

Unlike most Sikhs, Nirankaris accept the authority of a living guru, and
disapprove of the militant brotherhood of the Khalsa.

Some of these sectarian tensions peaked in the 1980s when Punjab was
gripped by militancy.

In 1984, the Indian military launched an assault on the Golden Temple in
Amritsar aimed at flushing out militants inside who were demanding an
independent Sikh homeland.

Many in the Sikh community were enraged by what it felt was desecration of
the revered shrine.

Later that year Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was shot dead by her Sikh
bodyguards.

The assassination triggered anti-Sikh riots in which some 3,000 people were
killed, many on the streets of New Delhi.

This week an Indian court handed down a rare death sentence to one of the
accused for murder, rioting and other charges.

Punjab has since been largely peaceful for the last three decades, with
Indian authorities mostly blaming fringe groups — allegedly backed by
Pakistan, and located in Canada and UK — of trying to create unrest in the
state.

BSS/AFP/MRI/2008 hrs