Chandigarh, August 9, 2020: Associates of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale who was killed in the army attack on Darbar Sahib (Golden Temple) complex in June 1984 were part of the plan to assassinate Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
This revelation has been made by senior journalist Jagtar Singh in his forthcoming book “Rivers on Fire: Khalistan Struggle”.
Sant Bhindranwale who headed the Mehta Chowk-based Damdami Taksal emerged as the symbol of Sikh militancy.
A memorial in the Darbar Sahib complex was raised a few years back to commemorate Sant Bhindranwale and his associates in that action.
According to the book, Indira Gandhi had been forewarned that the attack on the Golden Temple complex would trigger the revenge psyche and rightly so.
Three major actions to avenge Operation Bluestar are rooted in this historical Sikh psyche as attack on this Sikh ideological powerhouse has always sparked retaliation. These actions were her own assassination, the bombing of Air India Kanishka and the gunning down of retired army chief General A S Vaidya, in that order.
She was gunned down within five months of the army assault on Darbar Sahib and the people who were dictated by the revenge were and executed the final act were not associated with any political outfit.
Excerpts from the book:
The names of all those who gunned down Indira Gandhi and those who were part of the design to kill her are in public domain. However, at least three more persons besides all those known names were part of the plan to avenge Operation Bluestar.
One of them was militant leader Manbir Singh Chaheru who purchased the plot in Mohali for Bimal Kaur Khalsa, wife of Delhi police sub-inspector Beant Singh, one of the two assassins who gunned down Indira Gandhi.
Satwant Singh who rained bullets on her along with Beant Singh on the fateful morning of October 31, 1984 was the last to be involved.
Beant was gunned down on the spot in the firing by other security personnel while Satwant was seriously injured after they laid down their weapons and surrendered.
Satwant Singh was hanged to death years later along with Kehar Singh while another accused Balbir Singh was acquitted. Beant was related to Kehar. Beant and Kehar were from the same Ramdasia caste.
When Beant made up his mind to gun down Indira Gandhi, at the back of his mind was the future of his wife and kids.
It was at this crucial juncture that he was extended assurance by Manbir. This was made possible through at least two other persons one of whom was a bank employee while Prem Singh was with Damdamai Taksal. This bank employee too was a Ramdasia.
Beant was an apolitical person and his approach towards religion was casual till Operation Bluestar. It was the army attack on the Golden Temple that transformed him and he turned introvert.
He made up his mind but he wanted some personal issues relating to his family to be settled. Being a married man having children, his foremost worry was the future of his family. His wife Bimal was a nurse and the couple had three children including Amrit Kaur born in 1977, Sarbjeet Singh and 1983 born Jaswinder Singh.
Moreover, there was also the issue of harassment of his wife post assassination and as such, some sort of protection and patronage was a must.
Manbir assured him saying, “Your children are my children”. This matter ended there and then. It was Manbir who purchased residential plot for Bimal in 1986 in Phase V of Mohali, a few months before he was arrested.
Beant had been assured of support by Manbir and Prem at a meeting in Ludhiana.
The Taksal was thus in the picture in the assassination of Indira Gandhi from the planning stage. None of the main persons who were part of the meeting where Beant Singh was assured of all help to his family is alive.
Of course, this part came to be known to some others in the Taksal later when Manbir funded the residential plot for Bimal.
Manbir had joined Damdami Taksal in 1981 and became personal bodyguard of Sant Bhindranwale. He was not in the Darbar Sahib at the time of Operation Bluestar and organised the Khalistan Commando Force during the second phase of militancy.
He was the person who headed the Khalistan Commando Force after Operation Bluestar under the name of General Hari Singh.
He was arrested on August 8, 1986 from the residence of Major Baldev Singh Ghuman in Jalandhar on the information provided by one of the All India Sikh Students Federation activists turned police informer.
Manbir was kept in various jails in Panjab and later shifted to Bihar. His ‘escape’ from police custody was announced in December, 1987 while he was being brought back to Punjab. The police perhaps never suspected during his long custody that he was also part of the operation to assassinate Indira Gandhi.
These people were motivated by only one factor and that was revenge. The hurt of the army attack on the Golden Temple complex was too deep. It was perceived to be an attack not just on the Golden Temple complex but the Sikh Faith itself.
It was Taksal’s acting chief Baba Thakar Singh who had undertaken the responsibility to take care of the family of Beant Singh.
There is yet another aspect that has now emerged while talking to the people who were around him at that time. It was in the first week of October, 1983 that bunkers and morchas started coming up in the Darbar Sahib Temple complex.
That was an indication that Bhindranwale, who was leading the militant struggle, had by then realized the inevitability of the army attack on the shrine.
It was around this time that Kehar too came out with his loud thinking that something must be done to stop this possible attack and that ‘something’ was the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. However, this thinking could not be translated into action before the army attack.
Kehar was working as clerical assistant with the Directorate General of Supplies and Disposal in Delhi and related to Beant.
Operation Bluestar had upset both of them. Eminent preacher Prof Darshan Singh, who was later elevated to the high office of Akal Takht Jathedar, happened to visit Delhi during this period.
Both Beant and Kehar attended one of his programmes at Gurdwara Moti Bagh. Beant wept after listening to his moving discourse and was consoled by Kehar, a very cool and composed person. He said, “Why do you weep? Let us do something”.
The assassination plan was on. Beant needed at least one more person and they zeroed in on Satwant who was also on security duty with the Prime Minister. Satwant was taken into confidence only a few days before the assassination was to be carried out.
They decided to visit Akal Takht on October 16 to take the pledge. Satwant, however, abstained.
Giani Puran Singh, then priest at Akal Takht, who performed Ardas for Kehar and Beant, was not told about their design.
They returned to Delhi after taking the pledge. Beant had met Bhindranwale only once and that too only casually when he had visited Delhi.
Harinder Khalsa and Beant Singh:
Harinder Singh Khalsa, an Indian Foreign Service Officer, was posted in Norway when Darbar Sahib was attacked by the Indian army. Beant had met him once during Gandhi’s visit to that country in 1983 as he had accompanied her as part of the security detail.
He was distantly related to Beant through his wife Satwant Kaur as they shared the same native village Maloya in Union Territory of Chandigarh.
Harinder resigned from the foreign service in protest against Operation Bluestar. It was in August 1984 that three persons - US based Didar Singh Bains, Major General Jaswant Singh Bhullar (Retd) and Joginder Singh Sidhu - met him in Norway with a proposal. They were looking for a sharp shooter to avenge Operation Bluestar.
They were willing to offer one lakh dollars. It may be mentioned that the name of Harinder Singh Khalsa had also surfaced in the conspiracy part at one stage along with reference to this money.
According to one account, Beant had proceeded on leave on June 26 for a few days to re-join next month. His target was to eliminate her by October 15.
He had telephoned Harinder after latter’s resignation saying he had earned a place in history.
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It may be mentioned that Khalistan National Organisation in London on June 7, 1984 offered a reward of $50,000 for anyone bringing Indira Gandhi or Rajiv Gandhi dead or alive to the Golden Temple.
Britain’s Attorney General Sir Michael Wavers on March 10, 1985 ordered probe into this announcement. (The Indian Express, March 11, 1985).
The Man who could not kill Indira Gandhi:
A short statured young man knocked at the door of Sukhjit Kaur Brar who used to rent out upper story of her house near Putlighar area of Amritsar.
This boy had joined Khalsa College and was looking for accommodation. While talking to him, Sukhjit found out that the young man happened to be her distant cousin but much younger in age.
He was accommodated in the first floor room. He was Harjinder Singh Jinda who was hanged to death along with Sukhjinder Singh Sukha in the case of assassination of General A S Vaidya (retd) in Pune on August 10, 1986. He was the army chief from July 31, 1983 to January 31, 1986. He settled in Pune after retirement.
She got suspicious about his activities after some time. One day when the family had gone to Delhi along with Jinda, it came to be revealed that he had gone for recce of the house of the Prime Minister and carried a small revolver.
The day she was assassinated, Jinda was at home and as the news broke, Sukhjit told him also. He sat on the stairs and started crying.
She was flabbergasted as to what had gone wrong. Suddenly he blurted out that she was his target (Oh taanmerashikarsi). Then he wiped his face, rushed to neighbourhood sweets shop and bought sweets to distribute among people.
He just disappeared and nothing was heard of him till his arrest in the assassination of General Vaidya.
Jinda’s mother shared with Sukhjit the happenings on the day of hanging of Jinda and Sukha. Their families had been informed at the last movement about the day of their hanging. The families met the duo who told them to order band to play near the jail at the time of their hanging.
Before they were taken to the gallows, they had ordered sweets to be distributed among the inmates in Pune jail. They took bath and prayed for the last time.
They proceeded to the gallows shouting “Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal” that reverberated the prison. The family came to know from this that their last time had come. The families told the band to play and they started dancing to celebrate their martyrdom.
Both Sukha and Jinda told the jail authorities that their faces should not be covered with black cloth as is part of the drill. They did not allow the hangman to put the noose around their necks and they did it themselves.
Their bodies were cremated by the jail authorities on the banks of the river.
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Satwant Singh and Kehar Singh were hanged to death on a wet and chilly morning of January 6, 1989 at 8.00 am in the Indira Gandhi assassination case.