Plot to assassinate Advani: 4 Sikhs held

NEW DELHI, Jan 24: Indian police have arrested four Sikh militants and charged them with planning to assassinate Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani and two other prominent figures, the United News of India said today, reports AFP.

Police in the northern state of Punjab said they arrested one "terrorist trained in Pakistan and his three accomplices and seized explosives from them."

State police chief PC Dogra told reporters the suspects belonged to the Babbar Khalsa Sikh guerilla group, which was active during a 1983-1991 separatist campaign against Indian rule in Punjab.

"The terrorists were in the process of logistical planning to target Advani, Hindu leader Bal Thackeray and KPS Gill," who was the police chief of Punjab when the separatist drive was at its height.

Dogra said police were also hunting for two more Sikh militants of the six-member assassination team who had crossed over from Pakistan into Punjab.

Another report says, police launched a manhunt today for a Hindu militant in eastern India after arresting 47 other suspects for the murder of a respected Australian missionary and his two sons.

They announced a reward of 25,000 rupees for the arrest of Dara Singh, who allegedly led the Hindu mob that burned to death Graham Stewart Staines, 58, and his sons aged seven and 10 late Friday.

The United News of India (UNI) quoted police as saying Dara Singh was a member of the Hindu militant Bajrang Dal group which is linked to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Hindu Nationalist Party.

Staines, an Australian missionary working with leprosy patients in India, and his sons Philip and Timothy, were killed when a mob set fire to the car in which they were sleeping, in the eastern state of Orissa.

A resident of India for 34 years, Staines headed the evangelical missionary society in the town of Baripada, Mayurbahanj district, which is populated mainly by poor tribe members.