At least 308 people were killed Wednesday and today as the Indian Army attacked and occupied the holiest shrine of the Sikh religion in an attempt to end a terrorist campaign that has tormented India's Punjab state for nearly two years. Among those reported killed was Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the leader of the radical wing of the Sikh militant movement.
Forty-eight of the dead in the assault on the shrine, the Golden Temple complex in the northern city of Amritsar, were soldiers, according to Lieut. Gen. Ranjit Singh Dayal, commander of the army force in Punjab. He said the rest of the dead were Sikh militants who had been fighting the army with mortars, machine guns and antitank rockets. About 450 rebellious Sikhs and their supporters were reportedly captured inside the complex. At least 17 soldiers and Sikh militants were also killed as the army raided 43 other places of worship throughout Punjab. The shrines were said to have served as hideouts for Sikhs who have been carrying out a campaign of political murder. About 700 Sikhs were reportedly arrested in these raids. Eleven people were reported killed in Amritsar during clashes between security forces and crowds of Sikhs protesting the storming of the temple. Army Takes Control Late Wednesday night, a Government spokesman in Chandigarh, the Punjab capital, said the army and paramilitary forces had taken control of all buildings within the temple grounds and that active resistance had stopped. Mopping-up operations were proceeding, the spokesman said.
The storming of the temple could have political consequences for Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Sikhs in the United States called the attack an act of ''tyranny.'' The Sikhs' Akali Dal party announced in New Delhi that it would start a ''protest program'' today against the army action. India's Home Secretary, W. K. Wali, said Wednesday night that the army suffered more casualties than it might have because it tried to avoid damaging the Golden Temple itself, which is called the Harmandir Sahib. This is a small, gold-covered structure in the middle of a sacred pool.
All-India Radio, which is state owned, and other Indian news organizations reported that the body of Mr. Bhindranwale, the leader of the extremist Sikh faction, had been found in the Golden Temple. Mr. Bhindranwale was a fundamentalist preacher. He had vowed many times that if troops invaded the temple, he and his followers would resist. Rebels in the Harmandir Sahib fired on the advancing troops with machine guns. About 20 rebellious Sikhs ultimately surrendered there, waving white flags as they emerged.
The last band of holdouts was said to have been in the basement of another building, the Akal Takht, that is part of the outer wall of the temple quadrangle. The Akal Takht is the headquarters of the Sikh religion, which is a five- century-old monotheistic outgrowth and synthesis of Hinduism and Islam that prizes political activism and martial prowess, as well as a sense of egalitarianism. Many Surrendered Many Sikhs inside the Golden Temple surrendered as a result of repeated appeals by loudspeaker to do so, Mr. Wali said. He said the army moved into the temple only as a last resort, after the militants brought heavy firepower against the army outside.
Harchand Singh Longowal, the leader of the moderate, nonviolent faction of the Sikh movement, left the Golden Temple Tuesday night along with his followers. Mr. Longowal is president of the Akali Dal, a Sikh political party that briefly held power in Punjab in the late 1970's. After being defeated by Prime Minister Gandhi's Congress-I Party in 1980, the Akali Dal undertook a nonviolent agitation on behalf of greater political autonomy for Punjab, whose population is predominantly Sikh, along with demands for certain religious and territorial concessions.
The Government and the Akali Dal have been close to agreement on the demands several times, only to have an accord sabotaged by a new eruption of violence. The Bhindranwale and Longowal factions have been increasingly estranged, and the Sikh militants have long since seized the initiative, for purposes not entirely clear. Mr. Longowal left the temple complex through a back door after army troops entered that way from the street. He was taken to what was described as a safe place. Whether he was under arrest was not known. He had been living in the temple complex for many months to avoid arrest. 'Break the Back of Movement' Mr. Wali, the Home Secretary, said Wednesday night, ''I believe that this will break the back of the terrorist movement.'' He said that although scattered acts of terrorism might still take place, the movement had essentially been brought under control. However, protests against the storming of the Golden Temple started in New Delhi and other places soon after the news was known. Young Sikh demonstrators attacked buses with rocks Wednesday evening and tried to set a bus on fire near New Delhi's largest Sikh temple, but the police chased them away. Mr. Wali said some protests were expected, but he predicted that the country at large, including most Sikhs, would applaud the action. ''This is something that no government can allow to continue,'' he said. ''There is a limit to restraint.''
More than 120 people had been killed in Punjab by terrorists in the two weeks preceding the raids Wednesday, and more than 570 since the Akali Dal started its agitation in August 1982. Even as the raids were under way, a few terrorist actions took place. Nine people were killed in five separate terrorist attacks, according to the Government, most of them in the Amritsar district. The militants' campaign, which seemed to have almost a random quality at first, has since been well-coordinated and organized. A recent piece of evidence was the simultaneous arson attacks on 39 railway stations throughout Punjab in mid-April.
Other evidence, provided Wednesday by Mr. Wali, included the weapons used by Sikhs in the Golden Temple. The antitank rockets, he said, were far more advanced than anything used by the paramilitary forces that had been trying to deal with the situation before the army was ordered in last Saturday. One army armored personnel carrier was reported disabled by the antitank rockets. Some Curfews Are Lifted After the raids Wednesday, authorities in some parts of Punjab decided to lift curfews that had been in effect since Sunday. Some curfews were briefly lifted Wednesday to allow families to buy food. There was no word on when a ban on travel to Punjab would be lifted, or when other normal activity might resume.
Punjab military authorities in Chandigarh said the troops who took part in the Punjab operation came from all Indian religions, including the Sikh religion. ''All of them carried out the operation in a most secular way,'' a general said. Of the six senior commanders who took part in the action, the general said, four were Sikhs.
In the early 19th century, the Sikhs established a Sikh state in the Punjab and fought both the Moslems and the British colonizers who sought to annex it. The British finally subdued the Sikhs in 1849, and the Sikhs later supplied many recruits for Britain's Indian Army. Eventually, however, most Sikhs supported the Indian independence movement led by Mohandas K. Ghandi. Amritsar has special meaning for Indians. In 1919, the British killed 400 Indians on a field not far from the Golden Temple. The incident is regarded by historians as a turning point in Indian- British relations that helped lead to India's independence.
Source: New York Times
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