Special on 25th Anniversary of 1984 holocaust

Special on 25^th Anniversary of 1984 holocaust

First journalistic eye witness account

         Lest we forget Jagtar Singh, Chandigarh:

 

As the announcement by the Punjab government and the Chandigarh about the imposition of 36-hour curfew in the region starting 8.00 PM reached the offices of the newspapers in the evening, it was not received with any sense of disbelief. The announcement made it clear that every type of movement had been banned in Punjab and Chandigarh during the period under curfew and this included the interior rural areas also. people sitting in the offices rushed to arrange for necessary provisions. Two days earlier, very heavy firing had been exchanged between the para-military forces and the militants holed up in the Golden Temple complex. Heavy army movement had been observed in Punjab towards the end of the third week. It was clear to the media persons that some sort of action was on as the state had already been formally handed over to the army. And it turned out to be 72 hour curfew. Operation Bluestar was on. All communication links to Punjab had been snapped. However, Chandigarh was made the exception. However, no information was available as to what was happening in Punjab.

It was on June 6 towards the evening that newsmen were taken to the official briefing by the Western Army Commander Lt General K Sundarji at Punjab Bhavan, the first word on Operation Bluestar. Yet it was days later that the newsmen were airlifted to the war zone that was the Golden Temple complex, a day after a contingent of newspersons from Delhi had been taken there.

 

The morning of June 15 of 1984 seemed to be hotter than the usual. The still hotter Indian Air Force twin engine Dakota of the World War II vintage with aluminum bucket seats parked on the tarmac of the Chandigarh airport in the technical area added to the gloomy, apprehensive and the tense atmosphere. It took off with about a dozen odd journalists from Chandigarh, the first group from the city to fly to the war zone which was none other than the holiest of the holy shrine of the Sikhs faith, the Darbar Sahib complex in Amritsar.

 

As the Indian Air Force aircraft carrying journalists landed in the Air Force area of Amritsar’s Raja Sansi airport, it was “greeted” by the armoured combat vehicles of the army with the guns pointing towards it.  It was as if some enemy plane had landed. The Air Force authorities had apparently expected the district administration to make transport arrangements to take the journalists to the scene of action immediately after the plane landed. However, it was a long wait for a Punjab Roadways bus to arrive and pick up the scribe tribe. With the temperature hovering around 45 degrees Celsius, the Air Force officials tried their best to make the members of the fourth estate comfortable in the small briefing room within the limited means available.  It was after about two hours of long wait that a rickety Punjab Roadways bus arrived. Apparently, there appeared to be lack of coordination between the civil and the Air Force authorities. The journalists were first taken to the operations room where a large map of the “battle field” Darbar Sahib complex was displayed on the wall. After the briefing by Major General Kuldip Singh Brar, the local commander of the operation, the party proceeded to the scene of action.

 From the main entrance on the Ghanta Ghar (clock tower) side, the pock marked Darbar Sahib reminded the buildings damaged in World War II. The big clock on the main entrance on that side had stopped, frozen in timelessness, indicating the time the action started early in the morning of June 4.  Inside, the stink of human flesh was all pervading.

On the historic doors of the Darshani Deodi leading to the sanctum sanctorum, in front of  the Akal Takht, a notice had been pasted which proclaimed in capital letters: UNDER ARMY OCCUPATION…. And it was rightly so.

The Army authorities took pains to explain as to how the damage to the central shrine had been avoided. But then colossal damage had been done at some other level, the damage to the Sikh psyche. Haversacks of the soldiers lay piled up in the two stair cases leading to the first floor of Darbar Sahib. The historic hand written Bir of Guru Granth Sahib  on the first floor was covered with a white bloodstained cloth. Placing this Bir in order was a traumatic experience, which continued to give shivers to this author even several years later.

In the war zone, the only order was the disorder.

While coming out of sanctum sanctorum, a senior officer accompanying the scribes pointed to the exact place where Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, projected as the symbol of militancy and given out to be the main target of attack, had been shot, but then the information did not match the briefing by the higher authorities in the operations room earlier. And as he realized it, he was quick to make the “correction”. Contrary to the then official claim that the body of Sant Bhindranwale was recovered from the basement of the Akal Takht along with that of his associates Major General Shabeg Singh (retd) and Bhai Amrik Singh, he was shot in front of Jhanda Bunga as he came out from the basement. (The Jhanda Bunga is the flag post where the twin flags of Darbar Sahib and the Akal Takht are installed, the flag of the Darbar Sahib being the higher one, symbolizing the supremacy of the spiritual over the temporal). The ashes of Sant Bhindranwale, Bhai Amrik Singh and Major General Shabeg Singh were immersed along with 200 other persons at Kiratpur Sahib on June 14. The government, for some reason, did not come out with the exact information at that time. Heaps of dead bodies were loaded in the municipal corporation’s garbage trucks and carried to the cremation ground. No effort was made to identify the bodies.

The Akal Takht, the unique symbol of sovereignty and Sikh struggle constructed by the Sixth Lord, Guru Hargobind, which later came to acquire the distinction of being the supreme Sikh institution for prayer and politics in front of Darbar Sahib, was still smoldering. During the army attack, Sant Bhindranwale and his men had been holed up in the heavily fortified basement of this building which was subjected to intense tank firing.  Abinashi Singh, Personal Assistant to Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee President Gurcharan Singh Tohra, and Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Kirpal Singh, were trying to salvage from the debris whatever they could. The stink in the Akal Takht area was too nauseating and it appeared some dead bodies were still lying buried there. Abinashi Singh greeted the visiting journalists with an uneasy grin. The face of Giani Kirpal Singh was grim and dim in that shocking and horrific scenario.

After coming out from the  Ghanta Ghar side, as some journalists tried to go towards the serai (residential area in the complex) area, they were prevented by the escorting army men. That was still the forbidden area. The convoy was taken back straight to Raja Sansi. The water tank in the serai area with gaping holes caused by the artillery firing and the two observation towers of the fortress Bunga Ramgarhia, the fortress in the shrine complex, also told the story of the heavy fighting. It came to be known later that tanks had been taken even inside the complex to attack Akal Takht, the last point of resistance. The complex stood as mute witness to the three day war. Almost every inch of the walls, leaving aside the sanctum sanctorum, had the bullet marks of virtually all calibers. The Akal Takht lay in ruins.