Indian troops backed by tanks launched an all-out assault on the Golden Temple of Amritsar, the holiest shrine of the Sikh religion, in an effort to crush a stronghold of armed Sikh extremists. A fierce battle was reported raging. More than 100 people were arrested during the first hours of the operation, the United News of India said, and the president of the Sikh nationalist party reportedly surrendered. Heavy casualties were said to have been suffered on both sides in the fighting inside the 17th-Century temple compound.
Indian Army troops exchanged fire with Sikh terrorists firing mortars and machine guns from inside the holiest shrine of the Sikh religion in a daylong battle, the Government said. Two people outside the shrine were reported killed. No information on casualties inside the fortified temple grounds was available to the press this day. The blind head Ragi of the Harmandir Sahib Amrik Singh and Ragi Avtar Singh, were struck by bullets inside of the Harmandir Sahib by the Indian army. The army’s targeting of the Harmandir Sahib with bullets was in contrast to the alleged restraint stated in the army issued White Paper on 10 July 1984.
As of today, pilgrims who had reached the temple on 3 June were still present hiding in rooms. In one room 40–50 persons were huddled together, including a six-month-old child, during the army’s assault. A female survivor of the assault stated that the army asked people to leave their hiding spots and guaranteed safe passage and water; she recalled seeing the dead bodies of pilgrims who answered the announcements lying in the Parikrama the next morning. In the morning, shelling started on the building inside the Harmandir Sahib complex. The 9th division launched a frontal attack on the Akal Takht, although it was unable to secure the building. The Golden Temple complex had honeycombed tunnel structures.
The BSF and CRPF attacked Hotel Temple View and Brahm Boota Akhara, respectively, on the southwest fringes of the complex. By 10:00 pm both the structures were under their control. The army simultaneously attacked various other gurdwaras. Sources mention either 42 or 74 locations. Late in the evening, the generals decided to launch a simultaneous attack from three sides. Ten Guards, 1 Para Commandos and Special Frontier Force (SFF) would attack from the main entrance of the complex, and 26 Madras and 9 Kumaon battalions from the hostel complex side entrance from the south. The objective of the 10 Guards was to secure the northern wing of the Temple complex and draw attention away from SFF who were to secure the western wing of the complex and 1 Para Commandos who were to gain a foothold in Akal Takht and in Harmandir Sahab, with the help of divers. Twenty-six Madras was tasked with securing the southern and the eastern complexes, and the 9 Kumaon regiment with SGPC building and Guru Ramdas Serai. Twelve Bihar was charged with providing a cordon and fire support to the other regiments by neutralizing enemy positions under their observance.
Fighting overnight would result in a bloodbath, with hundreds of militants, troops, and civilians dead. The Indian government attributed high civilian casualties to Sikh militants using pilgrims trapped inside the temple as human shields. However, Indian forces were aware that civilians were present inside, and the operation began on a Sikh religious day, the martyrdom day of Guru Arjan Dev, when many worshippers would be present. Many civilians were subject to extrajudicial killings by the military during the operation.
An air battle took place near Arab island in the Persian Gulf. Two Iranian Air Force F-4 Phantoms from Bushehr Air Base, had intruded into Saudi airspace, setting up for an attack on oil tankers. The planes were tracked by a United States Air Force E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft, which directed two patrolling Saudi F-15 Eagles armed with AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles to intercept the Iranians. The Saudis shot down one Iranian Phantom, killing 1st Lts Homayoun Hekmati & weapon systems officer Seyed Sirous Karimi. The second Iranian F-4 was damaged, and made an emergency landing at Kish Airport. The aircraft could not be repaired and was written off. This caused the Iranians to scramble 11 additional F-4s from Bushehr. In response, the Royal Saudi Air Force scrambled 11 additional F-15s. Seeing this, the Iranians backed down, and the Saudis returned to base. Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced that three additional Air Force AWACS surveillance aircraft are being sent to Saudi Arabia.
Unknown assailants in a speeding car opened fire on an Israeli diplomat in a Cairo suburb, wounding him in the hand and shoulder, an Israeli Embassy spokesman said. Zvi Kedar, an administrative attaché, was reported in good condition after surgery. The attack was the first on an Israeli in Egypt since the two countries signed a peace treaty in 1979 and exchanged diplomats in 1980.
Israeli soldiers captured four guerrillas in a skirmish on the annexed Golan Heights. A military spokesman said the rebels infiltrated through a fence dividing Israel and Syria along a line set by a 1974 disengagement accord. No Arab group claimed responsibility in the raid, but two radical PLO factions-the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine-recently vowed to escalate their battle against Israel. The skirmish broke a decade of relative quiet on the heights.
Egyptian Prime Minister Fuad Mohieddin died of a heart attack in his office in Cairo. Mohieddin, 58, secretary general of the ruling National Democratic Party, had recently orchestrated his party’s massive victory in nationwide parliamentary balloting May 27. The physician-turned-politician became prime minister in January, 1982, and earlier held a number of Cabinet posts, beginning in 1974. Kamal Hassan Ali, who is deputy prime minister and foreign minister, was appointed acting prime minister.
Afghan rebels staged attacks near three cities, killing about 70 Soviet and Afghan government troops. Western diplomats in New Delhi reported. They said the guerrilla actions were staged near Mazar-e Sharif in the north, Herat in the west and Ghazni in eastern Afghanistan.
Separatist Sri Lankan guerrillas ambushed a police jeep with bombs today, killing an inspector and two constables, officials said. The guerrillas set fire to the jeep after the attack in Sri Lanka’s northern district of Vavuniya and fled with the officers’ guns. In another incident today in the district, rebels killed a man believed to be a police informant, the officials said.
President Reagan enjoys lunch with the Queen and Prince Philip in their private quarters.
President Reagan meets Prime Minister Thatcher at 10 Downing Street for a one-on-one meeting.
Antiterrorism efforts are expected to be stressed by President Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher this week at the London economic conference of the seven major developed democracies.
A monument to the American troops killed storming Utah Beach in Normandy 40 years ago today was unveiled near the beach by Army Secretary John O. Marsh Jr. The small obelisk, Mr. Marsh said, “is not simply a tribute to the dead but to youth who did not grow old.”
The United States and Italy agreed to an unrestricted exchange of intelligence data on drug trafficking, moving the two nations closer toward implementing plans for a joint attack on organized crime, especially narcotics. Attorney General William French Smith, after a Washington meeting with Italian law enforcement officials, named FBI Director William H. Webster to head the U.S. members of a joint working group.
The police in Bonn, West Germany clashed today with some 1,500 demonstrators protesting the visit of Prime Minister P. W. Botha of South Africa. At least nine people were arrested in the scuffles. Witnesses said fights broke out between the protesters and riot policemen backed by dogs who tried to clear the road in front of a hotel where Mr. Botha was in a meeting. The police moved in and made the arrests after a firecracker was set off in the noisy crowd and a group of helmeted and masked protesters smashed a window in a passing streetcar.
A statement issued by Chancellor Helmut Kohl after two and a half hours of talks with Mr. Botha was critical of South Africa’s apartheid system of racial segregation. Mr. Kohl told Mr. Botha apartheid “must be overcome step by step” and appealed to him for a halt to infringements of human rights and compulsory resettlements of black people, according to a chancellery statement. But it added that Mr. Kohl said South Africa’s attempts to reach better understandings with neighboring black countries were “courageous.”
Independents have ousted a pro-Soviet faction from the leadership of Finland’s Communist Party in a move intended to end 15 years of internal dispute and strengthen the party’s influence among Finns. The action by the party’s majority was seen as a rebuff to the Soviet Union, whose proximity to Finland is a decisive factor in the shaping of nation’s foreign policy. In a 183-to-163 vote, Arvo Aalto was elected the new party chairman, replacing Jouko Kajanoja. The Soviet Communist Party has supported Mr. Kajanoja; Mr. Aalto has never been a favorite of the Kremlin. In the last few years, the party has seen a sharp drop in its membership and has been all but eliminated as a political force in Finland.
Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos announced a tough economic recovery package that raises import taxes, cuts the budget and effectively devalues the peso by allowing it to float against the dollar. The measures are expected to anger workers demanding wage boosts. They were imposed to satisfy International Monetary Fund conditions for a $650-million loan. Since October, the official rate for the peso has been 14 to $1; the black-market rate fluctuated between 19 and 22. Beginning today, it will be allowed to float upward.
Salvadoran rightist leader Roberto D’Aubuisson, twice refused a U.S. visa because of his alleged involvement with death squads, was granted a visa last week, the U.S. Embassy in San Salvador said. It said that D’Aubuisson got a one-visit visa, and officials of his Arena party said that the defeated presidential candidate had already gone to Miami. Senator Jesse Helms (R-North Carolina) indicated that D’Aubuisson might go on to Washington to meet with U.S. officials.
Walter F. Mondale won overwhelmingly in the Democratic Presidential primary in New Jersey in a victory that his strategists regarded as essential for sustaining his drive for the party’s nomination. But the former Vice President was locked in a tight battle with Gary Hart in California, where Mr. Mondale had pressed for a second success that party leaders said would virtually assure his nomination. Senator Hart won the primaries in South Dakota and New Mexico, and Mr. Mondale won in West Virginia.
The Board of Governors of the Postal Service, rebuffed in an attempt to hold down rates, voted to get out of the computer mail business and turn it over to a private contractor if possible. Computer mail has never met expectations for revenue or volume since it began in January, 1982. Mass mailers using E-COM (short for electronic computer) deliver messages in electronic form, for at least 200 different addresses, to any one of 25 key post offices under a two-day delivery goal.
A rash of 10 unexpected deaths at a prestigious cancer treatment center was caused by common fungus spores entering a transplant unit through an antiquated air-filtering system, New York state officials reported. In a 148-page report on the deaths at Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo, the state Health Department faulted the hospital staff for failing to adequately monitor infections at its bone marrow transplant unit and for failing to report the unexpected deaths to the department. The institute’s new transplant unit was closed in April, 1983.
A gunman fatally shot a sales manager at a Winston-Salem, North Carolina, television station, then took a secretary hostage and fled to his home, where he held off the police for nearly six hours until he was tricked into surrendering, authorities said. The hostage was released unharmed, the police said. The gunman, Ronnie L. Jackson, had said officials at WXII-TV and officials of “The 700 Club,” a religious program, were spying on him and demanded a televised apology, the police said. Summit Cable Co. officials taped an apology and patched it only to Jackson’s home, prompting his surrender. WJTM-TV sales manager William N. Pismiller, 48, who was shot when he tried to intervene in an argument at the station between Jackson and the secretary, Michelle Holland, 32, died after surgery for a gunshot wound in the abdomen, officials said.
New York state’s highest court ruled unanimously that journalists may not be considered professionals for tax purposes because they are not licensed by the state as are other professionals. The decision by the state Court of Appeals was a victory for New York City, which. contended that columnist William Frye could not qualify for an exemption from the city’s unincorporated business tax that was granted to licensed professionals.
Legislation authorizing the Department of Transportation to license and regulate commercial space launches by the private sector was passed by the House. The bill, opposed by the Reagan Administration, would direct the department to issue regulations covering commercial space ventures and to require that companies have adequate insurance against risks.
Jury selection began in Detroit today in the trial of two men accused of violating the civil rights of a Chinese-American man by beating him to death after a barroom quarrel. Twenty-eight potential jurors were questioned by Federal District Judge Anna Diggs-Taylor on topics ranging from their thoughts on Japanese automobile imports to whether testimony regarding heavy drinking and nude dancing would offend them. Eleven potential jurors were dismissed after saying they had already made up their minds about the case, which has received widespread publicity. The case got national attention last year after two men who pleaded guilty to the fatal 1982 attack on Vincent Chin received what some civil rights groups considered light sentences.
Ronald Ebens, 43 years old, pleaded guilty in Wayne County Circuit Court to a reduced charge of manslaughter in February 1983. His stepson, Michael Nitz, 23, pleaded no contest to the same charge. Each was sentenced to three years’ probation and fined $3,780. Some groups contended that the probation imposed by the state court amounted to racial discrimination. Mr. Chin is of Chinese descent. His attackers, Mr. Eben and Mr. Nitz, are white. After widespread protest, especially by Asian-Americans, the Justice Department’s civil rights division agreed to look into the incident. A Federal grand jury here indicted the two men on civil rights charges last November. According to the Federal indictment, the two men taunted Mr. Chin at a topless bar, calling him a “Chink” and a “Nip.” Later, according to the indictment, the two men cornered Mr. Chin in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant and beat him with a baseball bat.
The Rev. James Andrews was elected stated clerk, or executive administrator, of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), ousting William P. Thompson, whose work on the National and World Council of Churches has made him one of the world’s most influential religious leaders. Andrews of Atlanta had shared power with Thompson in the 3.1-million-member denomination since uniting the church’s smaller, Southern branch with Thompson’s Northern branch last year.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that federal courts have no authority to order Mexico to pay compensation for 200-year-old land claims in Texas. The dispute centers on a 1941 promise by Mexico to pay the 433 claimants $193 million for 12 million acres of land they say their ancestors lost during the wars that punctuated Texas’ admission to the United States in 1845. Mexico agreed to pay for the land, but has made no move to hand over the money.
The Philadelphia Fire Department has agreed to fill 12 percent of its next 1,250 positions with black firefighters, ending a 10-year-old civil rights suit. Under the consent agreement reached Monday in Federal District Court, the department is required to hire 151 black firefighters. Deputy City Solicitor Ralph Teti said the settlement ended “one of the last major racial discrimination cases in the uniformed services.” “It is a good settlement and a fair settlement,” he added. The settlement ordered the city to use affirmative action in recruitment and to work with consultants on eliminating racial discrimination from testing and hiring procedures.
Residents of Block Island voted early today to ask Rhode Island for the authority to either regulate the use of mopeds on the 11-square mile island or allow it to secede from the state. The issue drew more than 200 residents to a town meeting that went past midnight. After hearing John F. Gray, first warden of the town council, say “I implore you to seriously consider what secession might mean,” the residents voted to ask Governor J. Joseph Garraghy to place a resolution on the state ballot that would require the Legislature to grant the town the authority to either regulate the mopeds or secede. Elliott Taubman, a lawyer, said if Block Island were to secede, “I suggest we take bids from the states that want us to see where we can get the best deal.”
Three weeks ago, residents of the tiny resort island eight miles off Rhode Island’s coast began talking about breaking away from the state when the Legislature refused to grant local officials the power to regulate mopeds and their three-wheeled brethren, tripeds. Residents say the vehicles are too noisy, are causing accidents and are destroying Block Island’s beaches.
New efforts to detect tax cheats are being pressed by the Internal Revenue Service. The agency has developed a plan to collect information from the 50 states about people who register an expensive car or obtain a license to be a plumber. The service said in a summary of the plan that because most property and business transactions were conducted under the laws of the 50 states, information obtained when people and businesses applied for permits, licenses and registrations “should be analyzed to detect areas of unreported income.”
The death of Musketeer, the last of 150 stray dogs that lived off the $12 million estate of an eccentric oil company heiress, has cleared the way for Auburn University to inherit the fortune. The late Eleanor Ritchey, an unmarried granddaughter of Philip John Bayer, who founded the Quaker State Refining Company, adopted the pack of dogs, most of them stray or unwanted, before she died in 1968 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Except for 1,707 pairs of shoes and 1,224 boxes of stationery donated to the Salvation Army, the 58-year-old Miss Ritchey left her entire fortune to the dogs, including her home, numerous real estate holdings, bonds, Treasury bills and 113,328 shares of Quaker Oil common stock. Miss Ritchey’s will stipulated that the money would go to Auburn when her last dog died or 20 years passed, whichever came first.
The mysterious death of an elephant has generated new criticism of the city-run zoo in Atlanta. When the elephant Twinkles died last month zoo officials said she had expired on a farm in rural Georgia where she had been put out to pasture to rest her crippled legs. It has now become known that the ailing elephant died while with a small traveling circus in North Carolina.
A severe drought in the Southwest is destroying crops and forcing ranchers to sell breeding stock for a second successive year. As a result, a shorter supply of beef is expected in the fall. Last year, one farmer, Lewis Smith, sold his breeding stock at a loss. This year, he is selling his ranch.
The NFL holds a special supplementary draft of players currently in the USFL to secure their rights if the players later move to the NFL. The first pick is quarterback Steve Young, currently with the L.A. Express, who is selected by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Defensive end Reggie White of the Memphis Showboats is picked fourth, by the Philadelphia Eagles.
Home runs by Lloyd Moseby, Willie Aikens, Ernie Whitt and Alfredo Griffin keyed an 11-hit Toronto barrage, and the Blue Jays scored six runs in the fourth inning to beat the Detroit Tigers tonight, 8–4.
Brad Komminsk and Gerald Perry hit home runs to power Atlanta to its seventh straight victory, as the Braves downed the Giants, 8–3. San Francisco dropped its fifth straight.
The Los Angeles Dodgers edged the Reds, 2–1. Alejandro Pena hurled a four-hitter as Los Angeles won despite committing six errors, three by Steve Sax. Pena (6–2) struck out a career-high nine batters and lowered his earned run average to 2.15.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1124.89 (-6.68).
Born:
Robinson Chirinos, Venezuelan MLB catcher (Tampa Bay Rays, Texas Rangers, Houston Astros, New York Mets, Chicago Cubs, Baltimore Orioles), in Punto Fijo, Venezuela.
Jakub Klepiš, Czech NHL centre (Washington Capitals), in Prague, Czechoslovakia.
Tyler Weiman, Canadian NHL goalie (Colorado Avalanche), in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.
Mike Hall, NBA small forward (Washington Wizards), in Chicago, Illinois.
Cécilia Cara, French singer and actress, born in Cannes, France.
Iris Van Herpen, Dutch fashion designer, born in Wamel, Netherlands.
Died:
Frederick Stratten Russell, 86, English marine biologist (plankton life history and long-term changes in marine ecosystems).
History Diaries 