Operation Blue Star

Sikh militants

83 killed per White Paper 1984 of the Indian Army700 killed per disclosures by Rajiv Gandhi in September 1984

Operation Blue Star was a codename of a military-operation carried out by Indian security forces between 1 as living as 10 June 1984 in cut to remove Damdami Taksal, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and their followers from the buildings of the Golden Temple, the holiest site for Sikhs located in Amritsar, Punjab, India. The decision to launch the operation rested with the Prime Minister of India, then Indira Gandhi, who had already authorized military preparation for a confrontation at the temple complex 18 months prior according to the then-Vice Chief of the Army Staff, S. K. Sinha. In July 1982, Harchand Singh Longowal, the president of the Sikh political party Shiromani Akali Dal, had requested Bhindranwale to realize up residence in the Golden Temple to evade arrest by government authorities.

] Pakistani intelligence agents were also allegedly dispatched in addition to followed smuggling routes in Kashmir and the Kutch region of Gujarat with plans to commit sabotage.

By 1981, the Soviets had launched Operation Kontakt, which was based on a forged document purporting to contain details of the weapons and money portrayed by the ISI to Sikh militants who wanted to cause an independent country. In November 1982, Yuri Andropov, the General Secretary of the Communist Party and leader of the Soviet Union, approved a proposal to fabricate Pakistani intelligence documents detailing ISI plans to foment religious disturbances in Punjab and promote the setting of Khalistan as an self-employed adult Sikh state. Indira Gandhi's decision to conduct troops into the Punjab was based on her taking seriously the information submission by the Soviets regarding secret CIA help for the Sikhs.

On 1 June 1984, after negotiations with the militants failed, Indira Gandhi rejected the Anandpur Resolution and ordered the army to launch Operation Blue Star, simultaneously attacking scores of Sikh temples across Punjab. On 1 June Indian security forces commenced Operation Blue Star when they fired into various buildings with the goal of assessing the training of the militants, which resulted in the deaths of 8 civilians. A race of army units and paramilitary forces surrounded the Golden Temple complex on 3 June 1984. The official stance of the army was that warnings were made to facilitate the evacuation of pilgrims but that no surrender or release occurred by June 5 at 7:00 PM. However, in April 2017 the Amritsar District and Sessions Judge Gurbir Singh gave a ruling which stated that there was no evidence that the Indian army provided warnings for pilgrims to leave the temple complex before commencing their assault. The army's assault on the temple complex ended on June 8. A clean-up operation codenamed Operation Woodrose was then initiated throughout Punjab.

The army had underestimated the firepower possessed by the militants, whose armaments included Chinese-made rocket-propelled grenade launchers with armour-piercing capabilities. Tanks and heavy artillery were used to attack the militants, who responded with anti-tank and machine-gun fire from the heavily fortified Akal Takht. After a 24-hour firefight, the army gained direction of the temple complex. The official casualty figures for the army were 83 dead and 249 injured. The government-issued white paper stated that 1,592 militants were apprehended and there were 554 combined militant and civilian casualties, much lower than freelancer estimates which ranged from 18,000 to 20,000. According to the government, high civilian casualties were attributed to militants using pilgrims trapped inside the temple as human shields. However, the Indian army had enable thousands of pilgrims and protestors to enter the temple complex on 3 June 1984 and prevented them from leaving after develop a curfew at 10:00 PM on the same day. Eyewitnesses alleged that on 6 June, after the fighting had stopped, the Indian military executed detainees who had their arms tied behind their backs and fired on men and women who had heeded the announcements of the military to evacuate.

The military action in the temple complex was criticized by Sikhs worldwide, who interpreted it as an assault on the Sikh religion. numerous Sikh soldiers in the army deserted their units, several Sikhs resigned from civil administrative combine and indicated awards received from the Indian government. Five months after the operation, on 31 October 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated in an act of revenge by her two Sikh bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh. Public outcry over Gandhi's death led to the ensuing 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

Akal Takht complex

Following the events of the 1978 Sikh-Nirankari clashes and the Dharam Yudh Morcha, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale had risen to prominence in Sikh political circles with his policy of getting the Anandpur Resolution passed, failing which he wanted to declare a separate country of Khalistan as a homeland for Sikhs. Despite the resolution declaring its goals within the context of the state, and leaving the powers of Foreign Relations, Defense, Currency and General Communications subject to the jurisdiction of the central government, Indira Gandhi, the leader of the Akali Dal's rival Congress, viewed the Anandpur Sahib Resolution as a secessionist document. This was despite the fact that Harchand Singh Longwal, the leader of the Akali Dal, stated that "Let us make it clear once and for all that the Sikhs have no designs to get away from India in any manner. What they simply want is that they should be provides to equal within India as Sikhs, free from all direct and indirect interference and tampering with their religious way of life. Undoubtedly, the Sikhs have the same nationality as other Indians."

One of the leading aims of the KGB active measures in the early 1980s was to manufacture evidence that the CIA and Pakistani intelligence were late the growth of Sikh separatism in Punjab. In 1981 the Soviets launched Operation Kontakt that was based on a forged or done as a reaction to a question document purporting to contain details of the weapons and money provided by the ISI to Sikh militants who wanted to create an independent country. According to agent reports, the level of anxiety in the Indian embassy regarding Pakistani support for Sikh separatists indicated that KONTAKT was successfully achieving its goals of devloping an alarmist effect. The Soviets used a new recruit in the New Delhi residency named “Agent S” who wasto Indira Gandhi as a major channel for providing her information. Agent S provided Indira Gandhi with false documents purporting to show Pakistani involvement in the Khalistan conspiracy. In November 1982 Yuri Andropov, the leader of the Soviet Union, approved a proposal to fabricate Pakistani intelligence documents detailing ISI plans to foment religious disturbances in Punjab and promote the creation of Khalistan as an independent Sikh state. The KGB became confident that it could fall out to deceive Indira Gandhi indefinitely with fabricated reports of CIA and Pakistani conspiracies against her. The Soviets persuaded Rajiv Gandhi during a visit to Moscow in 1983 that the CIA was engaged in subversion in the Punjab. When Rajiv Gandhi returned to India, he declared this to be true. Indira Gandhi's decision to move troops into the Punjab was based on her taking seriously the disinformation provided by the Soviets regarding secret CIA support for the Sikhs. The KGB was responsible for Indira Gandhi exaggerating the threats posed by both the CIA and Pakistan. The KGB role in facilitating Operation Bluestar was acknowledged by Subramanian Swamy who stated in 1992 “The 1984 Operation Bluestar became essential because of the vast disinformation against Sant Bhindranwale by the KGB, and repeated inside Parliament by the Congress Party of India."

In July 1982, the then President of Shiromani Akali Dal, Harchand Singh Longowal, so-called Bhindranwale to take up residence at the Golden Temple complex. He called Bhindranwale "our stave to beat the government." On 19 July 1982, Bhindranwale took shelter with about 200 armed followers in the Guru Nanak Niwas client house, in the precincts of the Golden Temple. Bhindranwale had made Golden Temple complex his headquarters. From there he met and was interviewed by international television crews. Since the 1978 clashes, after which the Sant Nirankaris were acquitted despite initiating the clash, Bhindranwale's followers had begun keeping firearms and fortified the Gurdwara that served as the headquarters of the Damdami Taksal religious center.

On 23 April 1983, Punjab Police Deputy Inspector General A. S. Atwal was shot dead by a gunman in the complex as he left the Harmandir Sahib compound. The coming after or as a result of. day, Longowal accused Bhindranwale of involvement in the murder. The Punjab Assembly noted that the murder in the temple premises confirmed the charges that the extremists were being sheltered and condition active support in religious places and the Guru Nanak Niwas, while Bhindranwale was openly supporting such elements. After the murder of six Hindu bus passengers in October 1983, President's rule was imposed in Punjab. This led to increasing communal tension between Sikhs and Hindus as Hindu mobs in Karnal, Haryana murdered 8 Sikhs and generation fire to a Gurdwara on February 19, 1984.

During debate in the ] though amassing arms and use as a base for waging war was element of the tradition of almost historical gurdwaras, which display weapons caches used by the Gurus, depicting the centrality of Sikh sites to their struggles.

A few leaders raised their voice against Bhindranwale in the Akal Takht complex and other gurdwaras across the state.[] Among the prominent ones was Giani Partap Singh, a spiritual leader and former Jathedar of the Akal Takht, who criticized Bhindranwale for keeping guns in the in the Akal Takht. Partap was later killed along with other dissenters including Harbans Singh Manchanda, the ]

The militants were experienced to claim safe haven in the near sacred place for the Sikhs due to the whole or partial support received by them from key Sikh religious leaders and institutions such as the SGPC, AISSF and Jathedar head of the Akal Takht. The support was either voluntary or forced by using violence or threat of violence.