POLITICAL ALLY OF GANDHI ASSASSINATED IN INDIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000100240003-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 21, 2011
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: August 1, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100240003-5
ARTICLE PAGE A APPEARED-
ON
WASHINGTON POST
1 August 1985
Political Ally of Gandhi
Assassinated in India
Anti-Sikh Activities Had Stirred Enmities
By Stuart Auerbach
Washington Pont Foreign Service
NEW DELHI, July 31-A par-
liamentary ally of Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated here
this morning, along with his wife
and a party worker, after he had
been warned by Gandhi's office that
he was on a terrorist hit list be-
cause of his role in anti-Sikh riots
last November.
Two gunmen fired at least 15
shots from a Sten gun and a revolv-
er at the unguarded house in which
Lalit Maken, 34, had been meeting
constituents before going to Par-
liament. The gunmen and a lookout
escaped on a stolen motor scooter.
Maken's brother-in-law, Deepak
Rai, told reporters outside the hos-
pital that the first-term member of
Parliament had been warned by
Gandhi's office two months ago that
he was on a terrorist hit list. United
News of India quoted intelligence
sources here as saying tat a en
had received a threatening letter a
few days ago. Nonetheless, the
news agency reported, a police
guard had been withdrawn six days
ago.
'Deflu Police Commissioner Ved
Marwah said Sikh terrorists were a
strong possibility as the assassins.
But he said police were also inves-
tigating the possibility that Maken
was killed as a result of rivalries
either within the ruling Congress (I)
Party or in the trade union move-
ment that was his power base.
Marwah announced tonight that
police had picked up three young
men for "sustained interrogation" in
connection with the slaying.
Maken's assassination came just
a week after Gandhi reached an
agreement with the mainstream
Sikh political party, the Akal Dal,
to settle many Sikh demands for
greater autonomy in the vital state
of Punjab, India's granary, situated
on the strategic western border
with Pakistan.
Extremists seeking a separate
Sikh nation in Punjab threatened
Saturday to intensify their cam-
paign of violence in an effort to
scuttle the agreement, which they
condemned as a sellout.
It appears, however, that the ac-
cord between Gandhi and. Akali Dal
leader Sant Harchant Singh Lon-
gowal has received widespread sup-
port from middle-of-the-road Sikhs
here and in Punjab who are tired of
more than three years of violence
by the extremists. More than 2,000
persons have been killed in the Pun-
jab violence.
In addition, Sikh extremists were
accused by the FBI of mounting an
assassination plot against Gandhi
during the prime minister's Amer-
ican visit in June and they are sus-
pected of having placed explosives
in an Air-India jumbo jet that
crashed off the coast of Ireland, kill-
ing all 329 persons on board.
Speaking to a stunned Parliament
this morning, shortly after Maken's
assassination was announced, Gan-
dhi appealed for an end to "the cult
of violence springing up all around
us." He said there are "certain el-
ements" who are trying to hold "the
entire society ransom."
Maken was the first member of
Parliament to be killed since Gan-
dhi's mother, Indira Gandhi, then
prime minister, was assassinated
Oct. 31 in the garden of her official
residence by two Sikh members of
her security guard.
Indira Gandhi's assassination
sparked a bloodbath against Sikhs in
northern India that has been called
the worst violence since that which
accompanied this country's inde-
pendence and partition into Hindu
India and Moslem Pakistan nearly
38 years ago. More than 2,700 peo-
ple were killed in the riots that el-
lowed Indira Gandhi's death.
A private study by the People's
Union for Democratic Rights idd
the People's Union for Civil Lift-
ties named Maken as one of the
officials of the ruling Congress fl)
Party who were identified by vic-
tims as having instigated the vio-
lence against Sikhs.
Maken, according to the allega-
tions, "reportedly paid to mob XS
100 [$101 each plus a bottle dCli-
quor," the report stated. In adili-
tion, it said, "instructions to mt}$s
indulging in arson were given from
inside" a car owned by Maken, who
was not then a member of Par$a-
ment. That report has been widIy
circulated among Sikhs, who blame
Congress (I) leaders for organizing
the violence.
Maken was a powerful labor lead-
er here, head of the Delhi Trans-
port Corp. workers union witlr a
large following among bus drivers
and conductors, who called a short
strike this afternoon when they
learned of their leader's death. -
The killers were said to be-.in
their twenties, and first reports Said
they were cleanshaven. Most Sikhs
wear beards as part of their reli-
gion.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/12/21: CIA-RDP90-00965R000100240003-5