World | Updated Jun 17, 2009 at 03:05am IST

Cops arrest Indian over gurudwara row

Vienna: Police have arrested an Indian who shot at officers searching a house in connection with last month's shootout in a Gurudwara.

A special police team were at the accused’s apartment in Vienna on Monday to seal it for investigations.

The gunman is a 33-year-old Indian, identified as Amrit Singh .

Spokesman for Vienna police Michael Takacs said, "The suspect fired two shots at Cobra officers. Nobody got hurt, the Cobra officers intervened immediately. They were able to overpower the man, disarm him and arrest him. We are convinced that he is connected to that crime at the temple in the fifteenth district."

On May 24, the peace of a gurudwara was shattered when a group of Sikhs belonging to a rival sect fired at Dera Sachkhand Ballan preacher Sant Niranjan Das. Another preacher Sant Ramanand was killed while 15 others were injured. Six accused were arrested then.

The attack on the police show how desperately dangerous some of these people are. There is a bigger network here than those 6 who carried out the attack and killing. The question is how much bigger this might be, whether they have associated groups and targets in and around Europe.

Police have conducted a series of raids on nine apartments in Vienna in connection with the Sikh leader's murder last month.

They have recovered an undisclosed number of weapons from houses of the accused. They have also confiscated a car belonging to one of them. The firing on the police team and the arrest of the gunman seems to be the latest twist in the murder case.

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