c. 1998 Religion News Service

VANCOUVER, British Columbia _ The high-profile publisher of a Sikh newspaper was murdered Wednesday (Nov. 18) night in an attack police said they believe is part of an ongoing conflict between Sikh moderates and traditionalists.

Tara Singh Hayer, publisher of The Indo-Canadian Times, was gunned down four days before crucial temple elections were to take place among British Columbia’s 120,000 Sikhs, who make up one of the largest Sikh communities outside of India.

British Columbia police called the slaying a”targeted assassination”and said Hayer appeared to have been killed over an internal Sikh feud similar to the one that led to the August murder of a southern Florida-based Sikh moderate, Gurtej Dhaliwal, allegedly by a traditionalist Sikh.

The Sikh tradition began with the teachings of Guru Nanak, believed by many scholars to have been a”sant”_ one of the poet-singers of medieval India who preached the need for devotion to a formless, nonanthropomorphic god. Those who absorbed his teachings were called”sikhs,”or learners.

As with the dispute among Florida Sikhs, the elections to decide who will control British Columbia’s influential Sikh temples boiled down to a showdown between traditionalist Sikhs, who believe followers must eat while sitting on the temple floor, and moderate Sikhs, who believe it is acceptable to eat using tables and chairs.

The practice of eating while squat on the floor was initiated 500 years ago by Guru Nanak as a symbol of Sikh equality. But moderate Sikhs, many of whom don’t wear turbans like traditionalists, believe it’s all right to adapt Sikh customs to modern times and use tables and chairs.

Hayer, 64, who was shot outside his home in Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver,was an outspoken critic of traditionalist Sikhs. The traditionalists were widely expected to lose the temple elections in British Columbia.

Hayer also opposed traditionalists involved in the militant struggle to found a separate, theocratic Sikh homeland, to be called Khalistan, in the Punjab region of India. In the past 15 years, the militants’ campaign has led to numerous murders in India and attacks on Sikhs in British Columbia.

He was one of five moderate Sikh leaders in Canada excommunicated by the Akal Takht, the spiritual Sikh authority in Amritsar, India, over the eating issue.

The newspaper publisher was also the target of a previous assassination attempt a decade ago that left him in a wheelchair.

Hayer’s son, Sukhdev Hayer, said his father constantly endured threats from Sikh traditionalists, but believed that freedom of speech was worth dying for.

British Columbia Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh, a moderate Sikh, said he was stunned by the news of Hayer’s death. Dosanjh himself was severely beaten in the 1980s in an attack police believe was conducted by Sikh traditionalists.

Other political leaders also called for calm among the Sikh factions.”We have to work hard at reconciliation,”British Columbia Premier Glen Clark told reporters after denouncing the killing.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police Constable Grant Learned said Hayer’s”planned and deliberate assassination”will have a”ripple effect”throughout the scattered Sikh community in North America, as well as among the roughly 16 million Sikhs in India.”It is imperative that the Sikh leaders within our community work hard to insure there is no continuation of any senseless violence,”Learned said.

Police, he said, currently have no suspects in Hayer’s murder.

DEA END TODD