A gunman shot at a prominent Sikh politician outside the Golden Temple in northern India on Wednesday before police caught and arrested him, in a scare at the popular site that witnessed a bloody clash between Sikh militants and troops four decades ago.

The politician, Sukhbir Singh Badal, former deputy chief minister of Punjab state, was unharmed.

The shooter, identified by police as Narain Singh, 68, was seen in TV footage from news agency ANI walking to the entrance of the temple in Amritsar city, the holiest shrine for Sikhs, and stealthily removing a gun from his pocket to fire at Badal.

He was stopped and pushed away by a policeman in plainclothes who was standing next to Badal, but not before he fired a stray shot, which did not hit anyone, police said.

“Due to the alertness and deployment of our police, this attack attempt was foiled,” Amritsar Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar told reporters, adding that the gunman had been arrested.

The reason for the attack was not immediately clear.

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Badal, a former ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, was sitting outside the Golden Temple doing a penance ritual imposed on him by the Akal Takht, Sikhism’s highest body.

Sikhism is one of the country’s main religions, and Sikhs form nearly 2 per cent of India’s 1.4 billion population.

In 1984, then-prime minister Indira Gandhi sent the military into the Golden Temple to evict armed Sikh separatist leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his supporters, infuriating Sikhs around the world.

A few months later, Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards at her home in New Delhi.