THE INDIAN military chief who led the contentious 1984 operation against Sikh fighters in the Golden Temple in Amritsar has been stabbed in a London street, the Indian embassy said on Monday (October 1).
Retired lieutenant general Kuldip Singh Brar, 78, was attacked by four people late on Sunday (September 30) during a private visit to the British capital, a spokeswoman for the Indian High Commission in London said.
An ambulance was sent to the scene and he was taken to hospital where he was treated for his injuries. Police are investigating the case.
Brar commanded Operation Blue Star, ordered by then-prime minister Indira Gandhi to flush out militants holed up in Sikhdom’s holiest shrine demanding an independent Sikh homeland. Four months after Operation Blue Star, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh bodyguards in retaliation. That triggered anti-Sikh riots in which thousands of people were killed, most of them in the streets of New Delhi.
General A S Vaidya, who was the Army Chief in 1984, was shot dead in Pune in 1986.
‘It was an assassination attempt’
Meanwhile, Brar is convinced that it was an attempt to assassinate him by “pro-Khalistan elements” for his role in Operation Bluestar.
“This was an assassination attempt. Even on the Internet, there are so many threats being sent to me to say that there have been many attempts on your life but they haven’t succeeded, but the next one will succeed. They’ve been after me.” Brar told a television channel on Monday night (October 1).
“On 6th of June, which is the anniversary of Bluestar every year, particularly in London, the radical Sikhs come out in procession with banners and make pledges to kill me. So it was purely an assassination attempt,” he said.
He said it was “obvious” that the assailants were Khalistan sympathisers.
Brar added that he fought with the assailants with “abnormal strength”.
“Now when I think back, I can’t imagine how I fought with those three big guys. But I suppose being a soldier and having been in the army for so many years, one learns to defend oneself.”
One of the four assailants, he said, separated his wife from him, while the other three “went for me”. His wife fell down when one of the assailants pushed her against the wall.
The police, Brar said, had told him that a mobile phone had been recovered from the site of assault, which may lead them to the assailants.
The Scotland Yard has appealed for information from members of the public on the assault and described the four assailants as wearing dark clothing, long black jackets and having “long
beards”.
The police said that they were particularly keen to speak to people who assisted Brar and his wife after the attack.
