Gunman shoots at Sikh leader outside India's Golden Temple

NARINDER NANU/ AFP

A gunman shot at a prominent Sikh politician outside the Golden Temple in northern India on Wednesday before police caught and arrested him.

The politician, Sukhbir Singh Badal, former deputy chief minister of Punjab state, was unharmed.

The shooter, identified by police as Narain Singh, 68, was seen in TV footage from news agency ANI walking to the entrance of the temple in Amritsar city, the holiest shrine for Sikhs, and stealthily removing a gun from his pocket to fire at Badal.

He was stopped and pushed away by a policeman in plainclothes who was standing next to Badal, but not before he fired a stray shot, which did not hit anyone, police said.

"Due to the alertness and deployment of our police, this attack attempt was foiled," Amritsar Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar told reporters, adding that the gunman had been arrested.

The reason for the attack was not immediately clear.

Badal, a former ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, was sitting outside the Golden Temple doing a penance ritual imposed on him by the Akal Takht, Sikhism's highest body.

Sikhism is one of the country's main religions, and Sikhs form nearly 2% of India's 1.4 billion population.

In 1984, then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sent the military into the Golden Temple to evict armed Sikh separatist leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his supporters.

A few months later, Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards at her home in New Delhi.

More from International news

  • French PM ousted after lawmakers pass no-confidence vote

    French lawmakers passed a no-confidence vote against the government on Wednesday, ousting the Prime Minister and throwing the European Union's second-biggest economic power deeper into a crisis that threatens its capacity to legislate and tame a massive budget deficit.

  • Top US executive fatally shot in Manhattan

    Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealth's insurance unit, was fatally shot on Wednesday morning outside a midtown Manhattan hotel, several media outlets reported, just before a scheduled company investor conference.

  • Israeli forces advance in Khan Younis, 20 killed across Gaza

    Israeli tanks pushed into northern parts of the Khan Younis area in the south of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday and Palestinian medics said Israeli airstrikes had killed at least 20 people across the enclave.

  • South Korean lawmakers call to impeach President Yoon

    South Korean lawmakers on Wednesday called for the impeachment of President Yoon Suk Yeol after he declared martial law only to reverse the move hours later, triggering the biggest political crisis in decades in Asia's fourth-largest economy.

News