This alleged assassination attempt on Badal comes decades after Punjab Police DIG AS Atwal lost his life at the same spot and in a similar shooting incident. Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Sukhbir Singh Badal was on Wednesday the target of an alleged assassination attempt at Golden Temple in Punjab’s Amritsar as a man opened fire, with the weapon pointing towards him, but missed his target after being overpowered by a policeman.
The shooting incident took place while Sukhbir Singh Badal and other SAD leaders were at the Golden Temple for performing duties under the religious punishment pronounced on them by the Sikh clergy. This alleged assassination attempt comes four decades after Punjab Police deputy inspector general (DIG) AS Atwal lost his life at the same spot and in a similar shooting incident. Atwal, an IPS officer posted as Jalandhar Range DIG, was shot dead by an unknown person when he stepped out of the Golden Temple complex after offering his prayers at around 11 am on April 25, 1983.
Varinderjit Singh, an 11-year-old boy, and Amritsar resident Kulwinder Singh were also injured in the attack and taken to a hospital. Varinderjit succumbed to his injury.
‘Killers danced around body’
The assailant had reportedly come from inside the Darbar Sahib complex with a rifle and reportedly ran back to the Darbar Sahib after committing the crime, the then Union Home Minister, PC Sethi, had informed in Parliament.
The incident had confirmed the information that the government was receiving regarding wanted criminals, including Dal Khalsa activists, taking shelter at religious places, Sethi had said. DIG Atwal’s bodyguards and policemen, stationed a short distance away from where the shooting incident took place were, had reportedly run away from the spot. The killers danced around the felled DIG, former Punjab DGP KPS Gill said in his account of Atwal’s assassination.
“The shopkeepers pulled down their shutters, and no one dared to approach the body. The killers danced the bhangra around the felled DIG, and then sauntered back into the Temple. Atwal’s body, riddled with bullets, lay in the main entrance to the Sikh’s most sacred shrine for more than two hours before the District Commissioner could persuade the Temple authorities to hand it over,” Gill said.
