AMRITSAR: A gunman who tried to shoot a Sikh political leader at the faith’s holiest shrine in India was arrested on Wednesday after a botched attack, police said.
The assailant entered the Golden Temple in the northwestern city of Amritsar as a guest and attempted to shoot Sukhbir Singh Badal, president of a Sikh political party.
Badal’s security tackled the gunman when he drew his weapon from his waist and the only shot he fired missed its target instead of hitting a marble pillar.
“Security has been tightened on Sukhbir Singh Badal. The assailant is in police custody and investigation is on,” senior Punjab state police officer Harpal Singh told reporters.
Badal, 62, was at the temple to serve a religious hierarchy sentence for alleged “mistakes” while ruling Punjab state in the decade up to 2017.
He was ordered to sit at the gate of the Golden Temple holding a spear from the beginning of the week.
The Golden Temple – the glistening structure in a large man-made pond, revered by Sikhs around the world – has been the scene of violence in the past.
Indian special forces stormed it in 1984 to evict Sikhs who had barricaded themselves inside during an insurgency demanding an independent Sikh homeland seceded from India.
When the army stormed the temple, hundreds were killed, most of them civilians, and angry Sikhs accused the soldiers of sacrilege.
Then later that year, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh bodyguards, leading to brutal reprisals that killed thousands of Sikhs across India.