External Affairs Minister S M Krishna, who had a telephonic conversation with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last night, today said he conveyed to her that the Sikhs in the US should be reassured that such "heinous crimes" will not be repeated.
"We have conveyed our anguish and disturbed feelings to the US. Sikhs in the US have played a very significant and useful role. They needed to be reassured that such heinous crimes will not take place again and that religious places will be given additional protection.
"These were some of the issues that I was able to put across to Secretary Clinton when she called me from South Africa last night," he said.
Krishna was talking to reporters after receiving a delegation from the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabhandhak Committee headed by its chief Avtar Singh Makkar here.
He said Clinton told him that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is conducting a thorough probe and is going into the motives regarding the incident.
"She agreed with our view points and she is fully in line with Indian thinking that it is a heinous crime," he said.
Asked whether the incident was the result of the "gun culture" in the US and whether time has come to put an end to it, he said: "We cannot step into the internal affairs of a country. We can just convey our anguish and disturbed feelings."
On August 5, six persons were killed and three critically injured when a gunman opened fire inside a gurudwara in Wisconsin. The gunman was shot and killed by a police officer. (More)
