AMRITSAR, JUNE 7 (DOORDASHAN TV)
1. GVs Golden Temple across water and PAN TO GVs Captured weaponry with troops standing by. (7 SHOTS) 0.48
2. GV PAN Weaponry taken away by army; bodies lying in background. 1.07
3. GV PAN & SV Golden Temple. (2 SHOTS) 1.18
4. GVs INTERIOR Sikhs playing drims and singing around sacred book as troops including Sikhs look on, Sikh officer in charge. (7 SHOTS) 2.14
AMBALA, JUNE 8 (BBC)
5. GVs Army vehicles on road. 2.26
6. GV Wall of Ambala PAN TO long line of civilian trucks at State border. 2.36
7. GVs Army controlling roadblock. (3 SHOTS) 2.45
8. SV & SVs Sikh soldiers standing at roadside. 2.49
9. GV PAN Army truck with soldiers passes. 2.59
10. SVs Medical aid distributed to civilians. (3 SHOTS) 3.06
11. TVs Ambala train station with stranded passengers sleeping on platform. (3 SHOTS) 3.17
CHANDIGARH, JUNE 8 (JAGDISH)
12. GVs Traffic moving along town streets. (2 SHOTS) 3.23
13. GV, SV & CU Civilians queueing and receiving kerosene. (3 SHOTS) 3.33
14. GV & SV Women rolling out dough. (2 SHOTS) 3.36
InitialsCC/JRS


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Background: AMRITSAR, PUNJAB STATE/AMBALA, HARYANA STATE/CHANDIGARH, PUNJAB STATE, INDIA

At least 500 people died when Indian troops stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar, according to informed police sources. The figure was 200 more than the official estimate of casualties. Pictures released by Indian television showed the central building of the sacred Sikh shrine largely undamaged by the hand-to-hand fighting which had forced Sikh gunmen out of their last strongholds. Indian troops, with Sikhs among them, displayed piles of captured weaponry and piles of bodies could be seen in the background. Hardline Sikh preacher Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale died in the attack and police sources said moderate leader Harchand Singh Longowal narrowly escaped death in a grenade attack by extremists during the army's final assault. According to the Press Trust of India he was then taken to jail. On June 8, Indian President Zail Singh, a Sikh, flew to Amritsar to inspect the Golden Temple complex. He spent an hour there, as Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in New Delhi, defended the army's actions. She said it had been unavoidable -- no government could tolerate the continued massacre of innocent people by extremists. She was referring to the hundreds of casualties in Sikh-Hindu violence which had followed the Sikh campaign for greater religious and political atunomy for Punjab State. However, as news of the fall of the Temple spread round the country, the death toll rose in Sikh protests. Six more were reported killed on June 8. The administration had anticipated trouble and Punjab had been sealed off. Several thousand trucks were still held up on June 8 at the Ambala crossing point into the Punjab as troops, including Sikhs, manned a roadblock. Rail passengers had also been stranded at Ambala station, where food and water was distributed to them. In Chandigarh, state capital of the Punjab, Sikh youths wearing black armbands had gathered at the city's three main shrines to protest Bhindranwale's death, but June 8 showed the city being restored to normal life. Traffic circulated freely as the curfew was lifted and civilians queued for kerosene to light their stoves.

Source: DOORDASHAN TELEVISION (INDIA)/BBC/REUTERS - JAGDISH KAPOOR