A hint of the decades long darkness that was to descend on Punjab

Sikhs vanish in Indian crackdown

Toronto Star
July 22, 1984

By Mary Anne Weaver
London Sunday Times

AMRITSAR, India — Thousands of people have disappeared from India's Punjab state since the raid on the Sikhs' Golden Temple seven weeks ago, Sikh sources say.

The Indian army has been engaged in a massive flushing out operation aimed at Sikh extremists. In some villages men between 15 and 35 have been bound, blindfolded and taken away, the sources say. Their fate is unknown.

Sikh leaders say worsening relations between Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's government and the Punjab's 9.4 million Sikhs was illustrated recently in the tiny village of Kaimbwala. One evening during prayers, 300 troops entered the small temple, blindfolded the 30 worshippers and pushed them into the street. According to the local priest, Sant Pritpal Singh, the villagers were given electric shocks and interrogated about the where abouts of Sikh militants.

Guirnam Singh, a 37-year-old landowner, was held in an army camp for 13 days. Last week, his face bruised and his arms and legs dotted with burns, he said he had been hung upside down and beaten.

Inside the army's bustling operations centre in the capital of Chadigarph, troops' morale is beginning to suffer. In the past two weeks, two officers and six men have been killed on routine patrol. There have also been desertions and raids on armories.

In private conversation, officers bristle at the failure of civilian intelligence which they say was largely responsible for the 1,000 deaths inside Amritsar's Golden Temple during "Operation Blue Star," the raid which ended Sikh extremists' siege of the 72-acre temple complex.

Faulty map

The army was told that followers of Sikh leader Sant Jarnail Bhindranwale had seven light machineguns at most; once in the temple, they found that one building alone contained 25.

Months of careful preparation at a life-size replica of the Golden Temple in Uttar Pradesh's Chakrata Hills was based on a faulty map of the temple complex. Two crucial entrances were not shown and waves of troops entered the complex in the face of direct gunfire. In the first nine minutes of battle, 60 soldiers were killed or wounded.

Neither did the army anticipate that it would be fighting its own men. Inside the besieged temple were four retired Indian army generals and at least 14 retired colonels — all devotedly loyal to Bhindranwale.

Under the direction of a retired officer, Maj. Gen. Shuhbeg Singh, they had fortified the temple and provided the extremists with vast caches of arms. The bulk of weapons recovered from the complex were from Indian army stocks.

Meanwhile, a story that "Bhindranwale lives" continues to spread through the Punjab's prosperous villages. Last week, two reliable Sikhs — a lawyer and an air force officer —said there were curious omissions in Bhindranwale's "post-mortem report." Fingerprints were taken, and the report allegedly classified the body's hair as "black, streaked with gray." Bhindranwale was bald.

Sikhs, Moslems join in Toronto protest over Indian strife

Globe and Mail
June 18, 1984

By DREW FAGAN

More than 300 Moslem and Sikh opponents of the Indian Government joined forces yesterday at Toronto City Hall to demand an end to the killing of civilians in the state of Punjab and the city of Bombay.

"Sikhs and Moslems are up against the same ruthless dictatorship masquerading as a democracy," Zafar Bangash, editor of an Islamic newspaper in Toronto, told the chanting crowd.

Asaf Shujah, an organizer of the rally, said the Sikh and Moslem communities should begin joint fundraising for the victims of attacks by the Indian army:

"Our cause is now the same. We must prevent the transformation of India into a Hindu society through the crushing of its minorities."

Yaqoob Khan, president of the Canadian Institute of Islamic Studies, said Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi is instituting a reign of terror against the Moslem minority across India.

"She is trying to eradicate the, Moslems as an effective political force in India. Over 6,000 Moslems have been killed in Bombay in the past month by Hindu extremists while the police looked on."

He told the crowd, about 25 per cent of whom were Sikhs that Canada should institute economic sanctions against India to persuade Mrs. Gandhi's Government to stop "treating Moslems like second-class citizens."

In an interview, Mr. Khan said Moslems throughout India are a well assimilated minority and, unlike the Sikhs, are not demanding an autonomous state.

"We are a God fearing people. Those who were murdered will achieve immortality," said Gurdeep Singh Nagra, vice-president of the Federation of Sikh Societies of Canada.

The Indian army attacked the Sikhs' sacred Golden Temple in Amritsar, the capital of Punjab two weeks ago. Estimates place the number killed in the battle at as many as 2,000.

"There is no law and justice in India. The Government mutilated and' killed thousand of innocent people," Mr. Nagra said, to cries of "Khalistan" the proposed name of an Independent Sikh state in Punjab.

After the demonstration at Nathan Phillips Square, many of the demonstrators marched in the rain to the Indian Consulate at Yonge and Bloor streets.

Drugs reported found in Sikh temple

Globe and Mail
June 15, 1984

From Associated Press and Reuter



AMRITSAR, India — Soldiers combing the Golden Temple of Amritsar have recovered huge quantities of heroin and other drugs that Sikh separatists were selling to earn money for sophisticated weapons, All India Radio reported yesterday.

The Government controlled radio, quoting official sources, said the heroin and hashish were smuggled in from neighboring Pakistan, stored and distributed from the temple.

Army officers in Amritsar also told foreign journalists yesterday they had recovered $300,000 worth of gold, silver and precious gems from the Golden Temple, the shrine that served as a base for Sikh extremists until army troops backed by tanks stormed it last week.

The army says 492 Sikh extremists and 84 soldiers were killed in the assault, and 86 extremists and 262 soldiers wounded. Independent reports have put the death toll at more than 1,000 Sikhs and 200 soldiers.

About 100 Indian journalists and six Western reporters were flown to Amritsar from New Delhi yesterday for a military briefing and a carefully controlled one hour tour of the Golden Temple, the first such tour since the battle.

Reporters found the seventeenth century gold domed temple intact except for a few bullet holes and broken windows, but the sacred building where the holy scriptures are kept was in shambles.

Troops had hoped to avoid firing at the Akal Takht, the ancient seat of Sikh gurus, but eventually they used a howitzer to blast the dome of the building, said Maj. Gen. K. S. Brar. A tank also fired on the building.

About 50 soldiers were killed and 200 wounded by machine gun fire raking the exposed esplanade — the "killing ground," as military officals called it — in front the Akal Takht.

"What we did not know was how well the extremists were armed, or how elaborate their defences were," said Lt. Gen. Brar, the Sikh officer in charge of the assault.

Sikhs fired from manholes, staircases and basements and from slits in windows and doors that they had bricked up. Some of the commando units leading the assault took 30 per cent casualties, General Brar said.

Collapsed pillars lay in a heap, and gaping holes were shot through the dome. The blue mosaic facade of the Akal Takht was shattered. On the second floor, one still smoldering room was ankle deep in spent machine gun cartridges.

But the Kotha Sahib, a tiny room where the Sikh holy scriptures are kept at night, is intact.

Other buildings were less damaged, but scarred by deep bullet holes.

Reporters were not taken inside the basement bunker where Mr. Bhindranwale and his top lieutenants reportedly were found dead.

Lt.. Gen. K. Sunderji said it was "most unlikely" that Mr. Bhindranwale, the leader of the Sikh militants, had committed suicide. He suffered a large wound on the right side of his head that could have been caused by a machine gun bullet, a chunk of falling concrete or a soft nosed bullet fired at close range, he said.

Meanwhile, authorities agreed to issue curfew passes to newspaper staff members and distributors, allowing newspapers in Punjab to resume publication today after an 11 day blackout.

Security forces said yesterday that about 90 people had been arrested in Punjab in the previous 24 hours.

Military sources said 50 soldiers belonging to the Sikh Light Infantry division in Amritsar district refused to obey orders yesterday.