BHINDRANWALE MEMORIAL the Man Who Sawbhindranwale Dead
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EXCLUSIVE The Big Story BHINDRANWALE MEMORIAL The Man Who SawBhindranwale Dead arnail Singh Bhindranwale 30 to 40 bodies in a bloody heap.” Jhad a clear bullet on the left A damaged APC (armoured per- side of his forehead. There sonnel carrier) had been pushed to REMEMBRANCE Bhindranwale has was a second, visible injury, a one side of the parikrama and been resurrected fracture, on his right shin. His leg Ghuman remembers seeing two dangled at an impossible angle,” Vijayanta tanks of the 16 Cavalry as an icon but not a says a former Indian Army officer inside the complex: “One was stuck rallying point for who walked into Amritsar’s after the marble floor collapsed OFTHINGS PAST Golden Temple Complex on the under it and the other was posi- sectarianism morning of June 6, 1984. Then a tioned near the langar building. young major deployed with the Their cannons were still pointed armoured brigade at Amritsar, towards the Akal Takht.” The offi- Col Gurinder Singh Ghuman, 60, cers counted over a hundred dead vividly remembers seeing the life- civilians on the walkway. Though less body of the man who had just past 11 a.m., the bodies were inspired thousands of Sikhs in already starting to decompose. challenging the might of the “One could smell death and gun- Indian state through deadly and powder but this seemed to be over- armed resistance just hours ear- powered by the smell of excreta lier. “He lay just inside the Clock and urine,” he recalls, alluding to SITE OFCONTENTION Tower Entrance on a large slab of the long siege before the Army The three-storeyed monument will be prominently ice,” the officer recalls. On the gained control of the shrine. positioned on a 30x30 ft plot near the Akal Takht white marble floor besides On the night intervening June 7 Bhindranwale lay his two most and 8, Ghuman received orders to trusted lieutenants—the All India secure the cremation ground where Sikh Students Federation (AISSF) 68 bodies he had seen inside the chief Bhai Amrik Singh and Thara temple complex were consigned to Pool of nectar Singh. “There wasn’t much blood fire. Around 3 a.m. on June 8, a and it was as if they were asleep,” Punjab Police patrol led by one he said. All three were dressed in Inspector S.P. Singh brought the r surprisingly clean chogas (long bodies of Bhindranwale, Amrik a Harmandir g kurtas) but none had his turban. Singh and Thara Singh. “The three n Sahib a L Ghuman and his 2-IC, Captain were accorded a funeral in accor- SITE OF PROPOSED Arvind Bhardwaj, proceeded down dance with Sikh rites. A granthi MEMORIAL the short flight of stairs into the recited an ardas and everyone stood temple complex where further with folded hands,” Ghuman said. Main entrance horrors awaited. The parikrama That was the end of Bhindranwale’s (walkway around the pool) was life but not his memory. grimy and littered with bodies. In BHINDRANWALE WITH the long verandahs fringing the Col Ghuman is an advocate at HIS SUPPORTERS, NEAR walkway, the officer and his col- Punjab and Haryana High Court THE GOLDEN TEMPLE league saw “what must have been in Chandigarh By Asit Jolly Singh Bhindranwale and his armed dhar-based property dealer, are the militant awaiting death sentence for the Terrorists pulled civilians out of trains fighters, killed during the Army assault faces of a rapidly resurfacing cult that August 1995 assassination of Punjab and buses and shot them at point-blank hallughara Diwas (“Sikh on the shrine in June 1984. identifies its heroes among slain chief minister Beant Singh and 17 oth- range. Of the civilian toll, more than 60 Holocaust Day”) on June 6 “Sikhs have paid for this most Kalashnikov-toting militants. ers. A day earlier on June 5, the Dal per cent were Sikh. t f drew an unprecedented precious piece of earth with their That morning, Akal Takht Jathedar Khalsa, proscribed as a separatist, mil- A multitude of websites, including 0 3 G3,000 Sikh men and blood,” says Tarlochan Singh, 27, the Gurbachan Singh presented them with itant outfit from 1982 until 1994, also pages on social networking sites such women to the Golden only son of Bhai Amrik Singh, All India shawls and siropas (traditional short celebrated the construction of the as Facebook, hosted by Khalistani Temple complex in Amritsar. The Sikh Students Federation (AISSF) chief turbans) alongside other militant kin Bhindranwale memorial. sympathisers abroad, seek to project annual remembrance service for the who died alongside Bhindranwale dur- including Bhai Amrik Singh’s wife Close to 40,000 lives were lost in Bhindranwale as a “defender” of victims of Operation Bluestar held a ing Operation Bluestar. Muktsar Gurmeet Kaur and Piar Kaur, mother of Punjab over a decade-and-a-half, end- Sikhism and its holiest shrine. t f 6 special significance this year. Tarlochan, a computer science teacher Indira Gandhi’s assassin Satwant Singh. ing with the Beant Singh assassination. They wilfully gloss over the venomous The five Singh Sahibs, or high at the Government High School The cleric conferred the title of zinda These included nearly 2,000 police and violence—targeted assassinations, priests of Sikhism, unveiled the foun- in Bhuttiwala and Bhindranwale’s shaheed (living martyr) upon Balwant security personnel and more than 8,000 random killings, indiscriminately dation stone for a memorial for Jarnail 40-year-old son Isher Singh, a Jalan- Rajoana, a Babbar Khalsa International militants and Khalistani sympathisers. gunned down bus and train passen- ARTIST’S IMPRESSION OF THE MEMORIAL 30 INDIA TODAY N JUNE 25, 2012 JUNE 25, 2012 N INDIA TODAY 31 new new The Big Story BHINDRANWALE MEMORIAL BHINDRANWALE’S KILLING FIELDS The face of the sepa ratist movement for Khalistan led a brief but eventful life.His malevolence continued after his death. PRAMOD PUSHKARNA/www.indiatodayimages.com September 1981 October 5,1983 June 1-6,1984 June 23,1985 July 1988 Lala Jagat Narain, Eight Hindus on a Indian Army storms Bomb planted 73 people are killed in former Congress Punjab Roadways Golden Temple by Babbar bomb attacks over minister and editor bus are singled out code-named Khalsa militants three days—two in of the Hind Samachar and shot near Operation Bluestar. on board Air Amritsar and one each Group of Newspapers, Dhilwan. President’s Bhindranwale and India flight kills in Kurukshetra and is shot. Rule is imposed. close aides killed. 329 people. Delhi’s Tilak Nagar. April 25,1983 August 1985 June 15,1991 August 1995 Ajit Singh Atwal, a Harchand Singh Militants massacre 82 Beant Singh, Punjab Police DIG is shot Longowal, passengers on board Congress leader dead on the stairway lead- Shiromani Akali two trains. 52 killed and Punjab chief ing to the Golden Temple’s Dal president is at Baddowal and 30 minister is killed Clock Tower entrance. BUS PASSENGERS MURDERED BY MILITANTS NEAR HOSHIARPUR IN 1986 gunned down. outside Qila Raipur. in a bomb blast. BHAWAN SINGH/www.indiatodayimages.com gers—orchestrated from the Golden is well’ variety, Punjab’s politicians typ- from Amritsar and former state health martyrs are. How can a vinashak his mentor, Harnam Singh insists that must at best be treated with Temple, by the very man they want to ically failed to note the developments in minister, known to speak her mind, (destroyer), the murderer of hundreds rather than the memorial, it was the humour,” he says dismissing the resurrect as an iconic hero. Amritsar. This until it became politi- often at the cost of offending of innocent people be a shaheed?” continuing opposition from sections Bhindranwale memorial as “yet another Emotions still run high. “The con- cally expedient to respond ahead of the her own party colleagues. “What else Thirty kilometres north of Amritsar within the BJP and Congress that could means for the SGPC to collect money.” Gill struction of the memorial is a major municipal elections this month. On can you expect in a state where at Chowk Mehta, the custodians of the vitiate the atmosphere in Punjab by believes that any governmental or polit- breakthrough towards fulfilling the June 7, the Union Ministry of Home the chief minister, his son and daugh- Damdami Taksal, a Sikh seminary once arousing communal passions. “These ical response would be tantamount to ideals of Sant Bhindranwale,” says Dal Affairs shot off a letter to Punjab Chief ter-in-law go to plead mercy for a ter- headed by Bhindranwale, view things people must stop playing politics over committing the same mistakes made in Khalsa’s 45-year-old General Secretary Minister Parkash Singh Badal advising rorist,” she adds, alluding to the quite differently. “The yadgaar (memo- what is a purely religious venture.” tackling Bhindranwale in 1984. Kanwarpal Singh, a former militant who action against the radical elements be- clemency appeal Parkash Singh Badal rial) is a tribute to men who sacrificed But mindful of the hostility, he is In retrospect, the man deputed to spearheaded a concerted 14-year-long hind the setting up of the memorial. submitted to President Pratibha their lives defending Harmandir anxious to get the job finished possibly arrest Bhindranwale at Chowk Mehta campaign to resurrect the Khalistani Closer home in Chandigarh, Punjab Patil ahead of Rajoana’s scheduled Sahib,” says Baba Harnam Singh well before the 18-month construction on September 20, 1981, agrees it was chieftain as a popular religious and Congress chief Amarinder Singh con- hanging on March 31, which was Khalsa, 44, the incumbent Taksal chief plan given by architects appointed by “rank mishandling by the state and political icon in the Sikh psyche.