Hope glimmered faintly last week that the often bloody problem of autonomy- seeking Sikhs in Punjab, an Indian state on the border with Pakistan, may finally be easing a bit. Nearly ten months after the Indian army stormed the sacred Golden Temple in Amritsar, the central shrine of the 15 million Sikhs, India's Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi announced the release of eight prominent Sikh leaders taken into custody at the time of the raid, in which 600 were killed on both sides. Those freed included Sant Harchand Singh Longowal, president of the Akali Dal, the Sikh political party. Longowal is a...
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