Gunfight in Gurdwara injures 30 in Vienna, Violent protests in Punjab

Vienna : At least 30 people were injured, nine of them seriously, when rival Sikh groups clashed with each other using knives and a handgun during a sermon in a gurudwara here. Police said nine people were severely wounded when members of two families started shooting at each other.

Five people suffered head shots and stab wounds, Austrian Press Association said in a report on its website. Police spokesman Michael Takacs said five men entered the Gurdwara early this afternoon and started firing at those present.

Police said at least six men, one wielding a gun and the others knives, attacked the preacher. Others rushed to his aid, resulting in the melee.

JALANDHAR: Army was deployed in Jalandhar and neighbouring areas and indefinite curfew clamped after protesters resorted to arson and blocked rail
and road traffic following an attack on Dera sect leaders in Vienna.

Mobs in Punjab on Monday set railway coaches on fire at the Jalandhar Cantt railway station and blocked the National Highway No.1 to protest clashes in Vienna that left one dead and many injured.

The condition of a second guest priest, 68-year-old Sant Niranjan Dass, who was speaking at the gurdwara, was stable after undergoing emergency surgery, doctors said.

In Amritsar and Patiala, a large number of protesters have come on roads and taken to violence to express their angst over the incident.

Six buses were damaged in stone-pelting in Phagwara and Adampur, near here, and two trucks and a bank ATM torched in Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur. Police said curfew was clamped in Jalandhar town as a precautionary measure.

Tension gripped Jalandhar when followers of Dera Sachkhand and various Dalit bodies took to the streets after the news of firing on Sant Niranjan Dass, the Dera head, and his second in command Sant Ramanand, spread. The Dera was established by Sant Sarwan Dass and Sant Niranjan Dass is the current incumbent (Gadi Nasheen).

National highways were blocked in Jalandhar, Phagwara, Nawanshahr and Hoshiarpur and at other places of Doaba region as mobs set tyres on fire. With angry protesters roaming the highways, police resorted to diverting vehicles through alternate countryside routes.

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