'Only a miracle' can save India's ailing top Sikh religious leader

The condition of a top Sikh religious leader who suffered a massive heart attack last week further worsened with doctors saying only a miracle could save him.

Gurcharan Singh Tohra, 80, was admitted to hospital last Thursday.

He heads the Sikh religion's managing body, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), which runs Sikh religious and cultural affairs worldwide and is headquartered at the Golden temple complex in Amritsar.

"Today (Tuesday) there was a plan to shift him to Delhi but the idea was dropped as his condition is not allowing the doctors to move him even an inch form the ventilator," said doctor H.P. Singh.

"The working of his feeble heart is pathetically reduced and now it seems that only a miracle can revive it," said another doctor. "Only 10 percent of his heart is still functioning."

There are some 20 million Sikhs around the world, most of whom live in India's Punjab state. The SGPC is hugely influential among the affluent and powerful Sikh community.

Tohra is also a senior leader of the state's main opposition party, the Akali Dal, which in the 1980s backed calls by Sikh militants for an independent homeland.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani both visited Tohra in hospital Friday after attending a political rally in Amritsar ahead of parliamentary elections next month.