Indian Army raids Golden Temple in Amritsar: Sikhs never forget Operation Blue Star

That was in 1984 when I was still in college. There were not as many TV channels as there are now but apart from PTV, only Amritsar TV could be watched in Lahore and that too when the weather was clear.

Nor was there any social media to get the news, so the good and bad news slowly reached the ears.

Amritsar TV used to come to my house but this news was not received from there. It was reported in Pakistani newspapers, PTV and radio that the Golden Temple, the holiest site of the Sikhs, was attacked by the Indian Army on June 3, 1984 and many Sikhs were killed.

It was not known at the time whether the Golden Temple and the Akal Takht were the same building or two separate buildings. The military operation was dubbed "Operation Blue Star"

It was later learned that General Singh Bhandarwala, a leader of the Sikh community in the Golden Temple complex, had been camping there for many years and was formerly a friend of the then Indian Prime Minister. But when they chanted the slogan of a separate country, friendship turned into enmity.

Bhandarawala was just sitting in the Golden Temple complex waiting for a day when the Indian Army would make a mistake. And on June 3, the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi made a mistake. The army was ordered to attack and then attacked with Indian artillery and tanks.

There was a lot of bloodshed. Although India imposed a curfew in Punjab, the international media, especially the BBC, continued to broadcast reports of an attack on the Golden Temple. Mark Tilly topped the report.

If I think about it today, I remember that in those days India was not as close as it is now because of media and exposure. The 'enemy' was far away and not much was known about it

I remember that the sympathy of me and most of the Pakistanis like me was immediately with the Sikh community and at least in Pakistan it was understood that now that the Indian army had invaded the Sikh 'Mecca' the Sikhs would never forget it. And now they should at least separate from India. We were inexperienced and inexperienced young people.

Bloodshed continued for another five days at the Golden Temple, killing General Singh Bhandarwala and many of his comrades.

The official death toll was put at 400 Sikhs and 83 soldiers, but the Sikhs put the number in the thousands.

Although the Golden Temple suffered no significant damage from sporadic bullet marks, the Akal Takht and its adjoining buildings were severely damaged by bombings and heavy weapons attacks.

There was mourning after the deaths, mourning everywhere. Mourning for those who captured and killed and mourning for those who attacked and liberated.

But the biggest grief was in the general Sikh community who did not know who to side with. There was an anger that was suppressed. The anger erupted six months later at the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who was shot dead by her own Sikh bodyguards and avenged the massacre at the Golden Temple.

But after the death of Indira Gandhi, anti-Sikh demonstrations took place all over the country, especially in Delhi, in which at least 3,000 Sikhs were killed.

The echo of the operation was heard again in London in 2012 when a group of Sikh youths, including a woman, stabbed Indian Army Lieutenant General Kuldeep Singh Barar as he returned to a hotel with his wife. Were coming

Kuldeep Singh Barar was the commanding officer of Operation Blue Star and is also known as the architect of the operation. Gen (retd) Barar suffered a deep wound to the neck but was not fatal. He soon recovered. Dozens of Sikhs were arrested in the UK in connection with the attack, but five were later convicted of plotting and attacking, including a woman.

When I went to Amritsar with my wife in 1997, a Sikh friend of mine took us to see the Golden Temple. When he came in front of the Akal Takht building, he bowed his head and said, "This is a sign of our shame."

At least until then, the building was in such a state of disrepair that it reminded every visitor of what had happened in June 1984.