Security personnel escorted Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) party president and former deputy chief minister of India's Punjab state, Sukhbir Singh Badal, and his wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal, after an alleged attack by a gunman at the Golden Temple in Amritsar on Monday. AFP
A gunman fired at a prominent Sikh politician outside the Golden Temple in northern India on Wednesday before being apprehended by police. This incident occurred at a site that witnessed a bloody clash between Sikh militants and troops four decades ago. The politician, Sukhbir Singh Badal, the former deputy chief minister of Punjab state, remained unharmed. The shooter, identified by police as Narain Singh, 68, was captured on TV footage from news agency ANI approaching the temple's entrance in Amritsar city, the holiest shrine for Sikhs, and covertly drawing a gun from his pocket to shoot at Badal. He was intercepted and pushed away by a plainclothes policeman standing next to Badal, but not before firing a stray shot that did not hit anyone, according to police.
"Due to the alertness and deployment of our police, this attack attempt was foiled," said Amritsar Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar, adding that the gunman had been arrested. The motive behind the attack remains unclear. Badal, a former ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, was sitting outside the Golden Temple performing a penance ritual imposed on him by the Akal Takht, Sikhism's highest body.
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