Close on the heels of the attack on Lt-Gen K.S. Brar, an army officer who led Operation Bluestar in June 1984, the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) bestowed honour on the family of the assassins of General A.S. Vaidya.
Vaidya was the Army Chief when the army carried out an armed operation to flush out militants from the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
The SGPC is the highest body managing several Sikh shrines and religious matters of the community. It honoured the kin of Harjinder Singh Jinda and Sukhdev Singh Sukha on the occasion of their death anniversary on Tuesday.
Golden temple under siege in operation Bluestar. General Vaidya, extreme left, had been shot dead
It also convened the bhog of the Akhand Path in their memory in which Jinda's brother Bhupinder Singh and Sukha's kin Surjit Kaur took part. They were presented siropas (robe of honour). Both assassins were hanged to death in Pune Jail on October 9, 1992. The SGPC had declared them martyrs in 1996 and displayed their photos at a museum among other 'prominent' Sikhs. However, the high priest of the Akal Takht - the supreme temporal chair of Sikhism - and the SGPC president were not present at the occasion. Jinda and Sukha were affiliated to the Khalistan Commando Force (KCF) - a militant organisation. They tracked Vaidya's movement in Pune and shot him dead on August 10, 1986. The KCF had claimed responsibility for the assassination. Jinda and Sukha were also involved in two other high profile murder cases - the murder of Congress MP Lalit Maken and Congress leader Arjan Dass. They killed Maken on July 31, 1985, in Kirti Nagar, New Delhi, and Dass on September 5, 1985, for his alleged involvement in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
Several Sikhs had named Dass before the Nanavati Commission, which was probing the anti-Sikh carnage. They were also involved in India's 'biggest bank robbery involving Rs 5.70 crore on February 13, 1987. They had targeted the Miller Gunj branch of the PNB in Ludhiana.
ਸਤਿਗੁਰਬਚਨਕਮਾਵਣੇਸਚਾਏਹੁਵੀਚਾਰੁ॥
