WORLD : India Talks Open on Sikh Strife
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NEW DELHI — Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar today opened talks with a Sikh leader aimed at ending a seven-year-old secessionist conflict in Punjab that has claimed thousands of lives.
The talks are the most serious attempt at discussing the dispute since a peace accord between the Sikhs and the government collapsed in 1986.
The meeting follows a conference two days ago by three rival Sikh political groups that authorized a Sikh leader, Simranjit Singh Mann, to meet the prime minister to negotiate self-determination for the wealthy northern state.
Mann, a former police officer who was accused of plotting the 1984 assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, said he would try to broaden the talks to include outlawed militant organizations.
“We want to involve the militants. They are the ones who are laying down their lives,” Mann said.
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