Operation Bluestar

Mrs. Ganhdi was assassinated in November of 1984. By the afternoon, one learned that they were her two Sikh bodyguards that killed her. It was an act of revenge of the thousands of innocents that were denied a proper death. It was at night that the mob started coming around on trucks, with cans of oil and petrol, matches and iron rods. Much like the rest of India, in Delhi, the mobs burnt up Sikh taxis, Sikh temples, Sikh factories, Sikh homes and Sikh shops. There were armed police men standing by doing nothing. Citizens were shocked. “This is what a Jew must have felt like in Nazi Germany. I, an Indian, have become a refugee in my own country.”  Some of the worst violence took place in Trilokpuri, a suburb of Delhi, where Sikhs and Hindus lived in close quarters. Husbands and sons were dragged out of their homes and beat with knives and swords, drowned in petrol and burned alive. Bodies were stacked up and set alight on the sides of the street. The Congress parties were entirely and completely responsible for what had happened in Delhi after Mrs. Gandhi’s assassination. The killings, the burnings, the lootings, the rapes, this was all entirely due to the Congress Party. They controlled the federal government in the Centre and they controlled the Delhi Administration. Everything was under them and it could all have been easily stopped in one day. By the time of Mrs. Gandhi’s funeral, most of the violence had subsided but senior members of the Parliament were accused of not only negligence but eventual complicity of the killings. What was very clear was that there was a certain sort of methodology in the way the mobs moved; it was not random. If Sikh houses were singled out, it was because they were already listed and those lists were available from the Municipal Corporation: which property is where, who is paying how much tax, who is living on what number on what street. Police stations have recorded many telephone calls where Sikhs were pleading for help, but no action was taken. It would seem as though a community of 13 million Sikhs were being held ransom for the act of what three Sikhs had done. There have been acts of violence against Sikhs and their properties in practically every part of the country. There was a hatred growing at an exponential rate against the Sikhs. The police officials, however, deemed everything to be in the norm. There were more than 16, 000 Sikhs in the refugee camps set outside Delhi, who were lucky enough to escape with their lives. Almost every family had a story of murder, burning and beating to tell. The camps were filled with widows and families mourning over their horrific experiences. Many were washing outside in the gutters on the side of the road. Sikhs place great importance on their cleanliness and the religion calls for an uncut beard and long hair. However, many men had their heads shaved by the mobs, as a graphic act against Sikhism. Doctors were volunteers and the food was arranged by the Sikhs themselves as the government refused to address the problem, since they insisted that the situation was normal and that the Sikh population was exaggerating the events. The fear of violence recurring has lead many thousands of the 3 million Sikhs living outside the Punjab to abandon their homes and go to their native state. The Sikhs were left in a very insecure position. The anti-Sikh riots after Gandhi’s assassination and the attack on the Golden Temple had increased Sikh militancy and armed separatism, which was the reason behind the few years of suffering of the Sikhs in their native state of Punjab.

There were many human right violations as the government responded to the increase in Sikh militancy and armed separatism by plunging a massive security force into Punjab. The authorities earned a notorious reputation for human rights violations. Punjab became a police state for several years afterwards. As one walked along the streets, there were police vehicles with officers pointing guns at the citizens. Human Right violations, particularly of custodian murders, explain the way of deaths that have presumably occurred in armed encounters, have been fairly common. It is generally acknowledges that only some of the official reports of armed encounters involving exchange of fire between the Indian security forces and armed Sikh groups are genuine. When they do take place, the Security Forces try to keep the forces. However, most of the time, the reports of deaths and encounters are concocted in the sense that they are afterthoughts, which aim to explain the custodial killings. Innocent people have been taken out at night to the police district and have been tortured and shot. Government officials privately admit that the custodial killings of non-militants are common. They argue that they have no other way to de-moralize a terrorist movement, which enjoys the measure of sympathy in Punjab’s countryside. The women were subjected to illegal detainment, rape and sometimes killed at the police stations. Promotions for more encounters you do (terrorists). The end goal was achieved: Khalistan supporters died. The courage (craze) of conviction of the people in Punjab is not easily daunted, even if they must suffer great hardships in the process. More than 2000 people in the Amritsar District alone were reported missing. Official evidence was uncovered by Jaspal Singh Dhillon’s persistent inquiry where the Punjab police had cremated several thousands as unidentified and unclaimed bodies.

I don’t know of any history in more recent times where the police resolves political issues. It has not worked in Punjab over the last 2 decades. There is no way to assume that Punjab is now completely at peace because below the surface, the same resentment are present. Many of the grievances are unaddressed and those who have lost lives due to police brutality, their families and others are now added to those who already had grievances. What kind of justice is it when the government-supporting killers go free?