Chandigarh/ Punjab (November 1, 2013): Named as “butcher of Punjab” by many human rights organization, Punjab police former Punjab police chief KPS Gill has blamed former Prime Minister Office (PMO) to ‘wrongly advise’ Indira Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India, that attack on Darbar Sahib was the ‘only option’ to ‘control the situation’. In his statement he has attempted to absolve Indira Gandhi from liability of the attack that had led to her assassination on October 31, 2013.
KPS Gill
According to a news reported by The Tribune “[m]ore than 29 years after the controversial Operation Bluestar in June of 1984, Punjab’s former Director General of Police Kanwar Pal Singh Gill has claimed that then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi would not have allowed the operation, but was wrongly advised to do so as it was presented as the only option by her advisors”.
‘The operation – much criticised and scrutinised over nearly three decades — was to storm the Amritsar’s Golden Temple with tanks of the Indian Army to [oust] Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his […] armed supporters’, The Tribune news reads further.
It is worth mentioning that it was government propaganda that the attack was launched to oust Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale from Darbar Sahib. The fact that the Army had attacked on more than thirty Sikh Gurdwaras in Punjab and adjoining states exposes the falsehood of government’s claims.
In a TV interview with journalist Kanwar Sandhu S.K. Sinha, former General of Indian army had revealed that some army units had conducted exercise to attack Darbar Sahib (Amritsar) in Chakrata in early 1980s. It is notable that by that time Sant Jarnail Singh had not moved his base to Akal Takht Sahib.
According to news reported by The Tribune : “[t]he official biography of the ‘supercop’ titled ‘KPS Gill The Paramount Cop’ released here tonight, also the death anniversary of Indira Gandhi, talks candidly of the role played by the 1957-batch Assam cadre IPS officer in tackling militancy in Punjab. Authored by Rahul Chandan, the 244-page book presents Gill’s opinion of Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi and PV Narsimha Rao and has passing references to VP Singh and Chandrashekhar, all Prime Ministers during the dark days of militancy in Punjab”.
It is notable that Indian media attempts to glorify KPS Gill as “supercop” to suppress the fact that he was behind mass level atrocities on the civilian Sikh population, besides family members of the Sikh militants. These atrocities included wide-spread and systematic extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, secret cremations and torture.
According to The Tribune, on Operation Bluestar, the author quotes KPS Gill as having said: “(It) was conducted in a hasty manner and without thinking what impact it would have on the hearts and minds of Sikhs.” The book says Gill told his fellow officers: “Don’t understand how Mrs Gandhi can order such an operation.”
“In what could be seen as a sort of clean-chit to Indira’s decision to order the operation, Gill is quoted as having said: ‘As far as Operation Bluestar is concerned, I know as being a witness to the secular credentials of Mrs Gandhi, she would have never have let that happen had she been advised properly. Advisors of Mrs Gandhi were not guiding her properly and the problem at hand they told her was a mountain whereas it was only a small hill’. ” the news reported by The Tribune reads further.
Rest of the news reported by The Tribune (Published on November 1, 2013) under title: Indira was wrongly advised on Bluestar: KPS Gill (visit this link to read the news on source page) :-
Gill, who was posted as IG BSF at Jammu in January 1984 and later posted as IG Punjab Armed Police in September that year, says Operation Bluestar can never be justified and blames the Prime Minister’s Office for it, but stops short of naming anyone in the Indira-led PMO. “The Army, however, is not to blame for this botched-up operation; it was acting on the specific direction of the PMO and had been given little time to prepare.”
The book says Operation Bluestar and the November 1984 Sikh massacres were the two most significant happenings for the cause of ‘Khalistan’ inflicted upon the nation by its own government. These two events in combination, gave a new lease of life to a movement, which could have easily been contained in 1984 itself, it says.
Giving reasons for militancy in Punjab, the book says: “One of the factors of militancy in Punjab was the high-level of complicity of New Delhi. Eager to consolidate its political hold over the state, the ruling party at the Centre (Congress) was prepared to ignore political violence.”
Gill goes on to speak about Rajiv Gandhi and the conduct of Operation Black Thunder in 1988: “(Rajiv) He had a very good grasp of what was happening and how it should be tackled. He was personally very honest… If any of his decisions didn’t go well, the fault lay with people who surrounded him.”
The supercop also narrates how PV Narimsha Rao (1991-1996) gave him a “free hand” and how Punjab Chief Minister late Beant Singh was keen to tackle militancy.
The book also reveals the genesis of Gill’s friendship with internal security ex-minister late Rajesh Pilot. Both were together in Shillong when Gill was a young IPS officer and Pilot was serving the Air Force as a fighter pilot. Pilot died in a road accident in 2000 and Gill retired from the IPS in 1995.