Why bhindranwale was killed

His simple and crude message, however absurd, that Hindus want Sikhs as second class citizens, has registered with even articulate Sikhs. What I saw and what I knew personally and very clearly was that he was speaking out against narcotics and on other social issues in Punjab.

He was young, aged 35 years, his speeches were fiery joshiley. Will a terrorist hold a press conference at his place daily? Perceptions are created, perspectives are changed, things and opinions can be managed. You have to tolerate those types. Of course, Bhindranwale was still laughing, in fact, giggling. The only time I ever saw him do that in possibly 30 encounters.

Once, I froze as I saw him tick off a very old woman who bent to touch his feet. What will people say, an year-old woman and a year-old sant.

I have said often that the subcontinent specialises in producing a unique type of demagogue, with the ability of picking up the grievances of a minority when it is most vulnerable and then magnifying and amplifying them brilliantly to create wide popular outrage. Even in that formidable pantheon, Bhindranwale was at the very top.

His beard looked like it had been rudely hacked with a large knife. He said he was from Jatwali village in Fazilka district, bordering Punjab in Pakistan, and that his beard had been cut off by Thanedar inspector Bichhu Ram.

Six months later, Bichhu Ram was shot dead. Tavleen wrote later how she never realised then that she had seen a death sentence being delivered. However devout he was, Bhindranwale was really no man of god, no realised master who had conquered ego and vanity, if other worldly desires.

In any congregation, he always wanted to be the centre of attraction and hated anybody stealing the limelight. On several of those visits to the Golden Temple, I was accompanied by or, correction, I accompanied Raghu Rai, the greatest celebrity photographer in five decades.

Particularly when, one winter afternoon at his sarai terrace, Raghu sat soaking in the sun on the parapet. He attracted a lot of attention. Or he may just roll over and die, and then the whole world will say santaan ne maar ditta that the sant killed him.

Behr was quite a spirited old man, one whom nothing would ever bother or irritate. As we got up to leave, he hobbled a bit, as old people, particularly foreigners, do because they are not used to squatting. Up came a spirited bole so nihal. There was no way Santji was going to let anybody, even a benign old gora journalist, walk away with the last laugh. Of course, Behr figured the joke was on him and for once he, the reporter with the thickest skin, lost it.

It felt by now as if the temperature had dropped to minus 30 degrees. I grabbed Behr by the waist and dragged him out, and myself, to safety.

By May , it was evident that something catastrophic was going to happen at the temple. Intrigue hung heavy in the air as everybody, even Bhindranwale, felt insecure. Several mutilated bodies then appeared in gunny bags here and there and the local police had a rough time dealing with them, fishing them out of the gutters. One of these, evidently, was that of Baljit Kaur, the Dalit woman who had shot Sodhi because she believed he had killed her husband.

Policemen who put together that body said they had not seen such brutal torture before. It was in this atmosphere of rising blood-letting, revenge killings and suspicion that Bhindranwale raised the pitch, and Indira Gandhi decided to strike.

He posed for pictures under a portrait of Bhindranwale, steel arrow and all, and argued passionately that his sant was not a separatist. He only demanded autonomy for states, which is the norm now.

He was deliberately misunderstood, he said. But "Operation Blue Star" went well beyond the slaying of Bhindranwale: it was a well-calculated and deliberate slap in the face of an entire community. I felt strongly that I must register my protest.

I did not consult anyone: my wife was away in Kasauli, my daughter in office, my son in Bombay. I was asked to come straightaway. Tarlochan had anticipated that I had come to return it to the government. Giani Zail Singh was in a state of acute depression. Think over the matter for a few days and then decide what you should do. I had sworn that if the army entered the temple I would renounce the honours bestowed on me by this government.

He was looking for some kind of assurance to the contrary. I knew Gianiji would keep my returning the Padma Bhushan to himself. I did not give him a chance. The evening papers carried the news; the morning papers had it on their front pages.

What followed was a painful discovery to me. Overnight I became a kind of folk hero of the Sikhs: the first to openly denounce the government. And a villain for Hindus. I was flooded with letters and telegrams: Sikhs applauding me for having shown how a Sikh should act; Hindus denouncing me as an arch enemy of the country. Even Girilal Jain, a man I had regarded as being above communal prejudices, wrote an editorial against me.

Every pressman who came to interview me asked why I had not resigned from the Rajya Sabha as well. I told them that I was not going to deprive myself of the one forum from which I could tell the government and the people what grievous wrong it had done to the Sikhs and the country. Entrance to the Golden Temple was still restricted. But they could not very well keep me out. I was met at the railway station by an army officer who told me that he had been deputed by General KS Brar, who had played a leading role in Operation Blue Star, to be by my side for the sake of my safety.

In fact he had been deputed to keep an eye on my movements. I went round the parikrama and saw the devastation caused by the army.

Workmen were hastily filling in dents left by bullets and cleaning up the marble floor of blood-stains. Despite the terror that Bhindranwale had established by this time, a few brave souls dared to speak out. Among them was Giani Partap Singh, a former Jathedar of the Akal Takht and at that time over years of age, a highly respected spiritual guide for the Sikhs.

He openly criticised Bhindranwale for occupying the Akal Takht and stocking weapons inside the Sikh holy shrine. But, he was shot and killed in cold blood at his home at Tahli Chowk. Very quickly, all other voices fell silent. But Bhindranwale didn't just occupy the Akal Takht; he turned it into a charnel house of torture and butchery.

In one highly publicised case, when one of Bhindranwale's favoured hitmen, Surinder Singh Sodhi was killed in a fracas with some of the other criminals in his entourage, brutal retaliation followed. One of the conspirators, Malik Singh Bhatia, was summoned to the Akal Takht, and after a charade of 'forgiveness', was first hacked with swords and, grievously wounded, when he tried to flee, shot down on the Parikrama.

Baljit Kaur, a woman conspirator, was tortured, her breasts hacked off, and then killed within the Akal Takht itself. Her body with the mutilated corpse of third accomplice, Surinder Singh Chinda, was recovered in gunny bags from the Grand Trunk Road the next day.

A tea vendor outside the temple was shot dead.