Operation Blue Star was a large Indian military operation carried out between 1 and 8 June 1984, ordered by Indira Gandhi to remove leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his militant Sikh followers from the buildings of the Harmandir Sahib complex in Amritsar, Punjab.[3] The Indian army suffered around 83 casualties with 700 injuries, and 450–500 Sikh rebels were killed during the operation. The handling of the operation, damage to the holy shrine, and loss of military and civilian life on both sides led to widespread criticism of the Indian government.[citation needed]
The perceived threat to Gandhi's life increased after the operation.[4] Accordingly, Sikhs were removed from her personal bodyguard detail by the Intelligence Bureau for fear of assassination. Gandhi thought that this would reinforce her anti-Sikh image among the public, however, and she ordered the Delhi Police to reinstate her Sikh bodyguards,[5] including Beant Singh, who was reported to be her personal favorite.[6]
Assassination
At about 9:20 a.m. Indian Standard Time, on 31 October 1984, Gandhi was on her way to be interviewed by British actor Peter Ustinov, who was filming a documentary for Irish television. She was accompanied by Constable Narayan Singh, personal security officer Rameshwar Dayal and Gandhi's personal secretary, R. K. Dhawan.[7] She was walking through the garden of the Prime Minister's Residence at No. 1 Safdarjung Road in New Delhi towards the neighboring 1 Akbar Road office.[8]
Gandhi passed a wicket gate guarded by Satwant and Beant Singh, and the two men opened fire. Beant fired three rounds into her abdomen from his .38 (9.7 mm) revolver;[6] then Satwant fired 30 rounds from his Sterling sub-machine gun after she had fallen to the ground.[6] Both men then threw down their weapons and Beant said, "I have done what I had to do. You do what you want to do." In the next six minutes, Border Police officers Tarsem Singh Jamwal and Ram Saran captured and killed Beant, while Satwant was arrested by Gandhi's other bodyguards and an accomplice trying to escape; he was seriously wounded.[9] Satwant Singh was hanged in 1989 with accomplice Kehar Singh.[10]
Salma Sultan gave the first news of the assassination of Gandhi on Doordarshan's evening news on 31 October 1984, more than ten hours after she was killed.[11][12] It is alleged by the Indian government that Gandhi's secretary R. K. Dhawan overruled intelligence and security officials who had ordered the removal of policemen as a security threat, including her assassins.[13]
Beant was one of Gandhi's favorite guards, whom she had known for ten years.[6] Because he was a Sikh, he had been taken off her staff after Operation Blue Star; however, Gandhi had made sure that he was reinstated.[14] Satwant was 22 years old at the time of the assassination, and had been assigned to Gandhi's guard just five months previously.[6]
Gandhi's blood-stained saree and her belongings at the time of her assassination, preserved at the Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum in New Delhi.
Gandhi was taken to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi at 9:30 a.m. Doctors operated on her. She was declared dead at 2:20 p.m. The postmortem examination was conducted by a team of doctors headed by Tirath Das Dogra, who stated that 30 bullets had struck Gandhi from a Sterling sub-machine gun and a revolver. The assailants had fired 33 bullets at her, of which 30 had hit; 23 had passed through her body, while seven remained inside. Dogra extracted bullets to establish the identity of the weapons and to correlate each weapon with the bullets recovered by ballistic examination. The bullets were matched to the weapons at CFSL Delhi.
The Indian government ordered a national mourning from November 1 to November 12 with flags half-masted and canceled entertainment and cultural events and offices closed for several days.[15][16]Pakistan[17][18] declared three days of mourning and Bulgaria declared a day of national mourning.[19]
Funeral
Gandhi's body was taken in a gun carriage through Delhi roads on the morning of 1 November to Teen Murti Bhavan, where her father stayed and where she lay in state.[8] She was cremated with full state honors on 3 November near Raj Ghat, a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi, at an area named Shakti Sthal. Her elder son and successor, Rajiv Gandhi, lit the pyre.
Among the foreign dignitaries who attended the state funeral were:[20]
The Justice Thakkar Commission of Inquiry, headed by Justice Manharlal Pranlal Thakkar, set up to probe Gandhi's assassination, recommended a separate probe for the conspiracy angle behind the assassination. The Thakkar Report stated that the "needle of suspicion" pointed at R. K. Dhawan for complicity in the conspiracy.[24]
Satwant Singh and alleged conspirator Kehar Singh were sentenced to death. Both were executed on 6 January 1989.[25]
A Punjabi movie titled Kaum De Heere (Gems of the Community) highlighting the roles/lives of the two guards that assassinated Indira Gandhi was set to be released on 22 August 2014, but was banned by the Indian government[26][27] for five years.[28]
^"1984: Assassination and revenge". BBC News. 31 October 1984. from the original on 15 February 2009. Retrieved 23 January 2009.
^Kiss, Peter A. (2014). Winning Wars amongst the People: Case Studies in Asymmetric Conflict (Illustrated ed.). Potomac Books. p. 100. ISBN9781612347004. from the original on 15 July 2018. Retrieved 15 July 2018. In operation Bluestar a force of several battalions occupied the holy precincts in a battle lasting several hours. Bhindranwale and man of his associates were killed – but there was a very large number of civilian casualties as well.
^Swami, Praveen (16 January 2014). "RAW chief consulted MI6 in the build-up to Operation Bluestar". The Hindu. Chennai, India.
^"Operation Blue Star: India's first tryst with militant extremism". Dnaindia.com. 5 November 2016. from the original on 3 November 2017. Retrieved 29 October 2017.
^Ghose, Sagarika (28 December 2018). "She Handpicked Him, He Shot Her Dead". readersdigest.in. Reader's Digest. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
^ abcdeSmith, William E. (12 November 1984). "Indira Gandhi's assassination sparks a fearful round of sectarian violence". Time. from the original on 3 November 2012. Retrieved 19 January 2013.
^Dutta, Prabhash K. (31 October 2018). "The last day of Indira Gandhi". India Today.
^ ab. CNN-IBN. 30 October 2009. Archived from the original on 4 November 2011. Retrieved 5 September 2011.
^"Questions still surround Gandhi assassination". Times Daily. New Delhi. AP. 24 November 1984. Retrieved 19 January 2013.
^Dr. Sangat Kr. Singh, The Sikhs in History, p. 393
^"The riots that could not be televised". Indianexpress.com. 3 November 2009. from the original on 5 December 2009. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
^"We the eyeballs : Cover Story – India Today". Indiatoday.intoday.in. from the original on 15 December 2014. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
^Hazarika, Sanjoy (28 March 1989). "India Releases Stinging Report on Gandhi's Death". The New York Times. from the original on 7 November 2017. Retrieved 5 February 2017.
^Ghose, Sagarika (28 December 2018). "She Handpicked Him, He Shot Her Dead". readersdigest.in. Reader's Digest. Retrieved 17 June 2020.
^"HT THIS DAY: November 1, 1984 — Prime Minister Indira Gandhi shot dead; 12-day mourning announced". 31 October 2021.
^Crossette, Barbara (6 January 1989). "India Hangs Two Sikhs Convicted in Assassination of Indira Gandhi". The New York Times.
^"Assassination Aftermath: Olive Branches from Neighbors; Pakistan Offers to Improve India Ties". The New York Times. 2 November 1984.
^Указ № 3904 от 1 ноември 1984 г. Обн. ДВ. бр. 88 от 6 ноември 1984 г.
^"MEA Annual Report 1984-85". Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India. 1985. Retrieved 13 June 2021.
^"Reagan, Others Express Shock, Grief". The Boston Globe. Associated Press. 1 November 1984. p. 14. Secretary of State George P. Shultz was named to head the official US delegation to Gandhi's funeral. Bush, asked why he would not represent the United States there, as he often has at state funerals, said: 'Because I'm involved in an election campaign...I think people will understand.'
^Reagan, Ronald (31 October 1984). "Statement on the Assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India". reaganlibrary.gov. Retrieved 27 October 2022.
^Nelson, Dean (30 January 2014). "Delhi to reopen inquiry in to massacre of Sikhs in 1984 riots". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022. Retrieved 3 May 2016.
^Chawla, Prabhu (15 April 1989). "Thakkar Commission report leak: Govt try to accuse Arun Nehru of being the main culprit". India Today. Retrieved 30 October 2018.
^Hazarika, Sanjoy (7 January 1989). "Protests Follow Hanging of 2 Sikhs". The New York Times. Vol. 138, no. 47743.
^"Centre blocks release of controversial film on Indira Gandhi's assassins 'Kaum de Heere'". The Times of India. Mumbai. Times News Network. 21 August 2014. from the original on 21 November 2014. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
^"Film on Indira Gandhi's assassins barred from release". The Tribune. Chandigarh, India. Press Trust of India. 21 August 2014. from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
^"Delhi HC clears release of Punjabi movie 'Kaum De Heere'". The Tribune. Press Trust India. 29 August 2019. Retrieved 15 September 2021.
External links
Indira Gandhi assassination books in Tamil in two volumes by Mrs. Z.Y. Himsagar and S. Padmavathi, M.A., M.L., Notion press.com, Chennai, 2016 edition, ISBN9789352065967, 9789352065974
assassination, indira, gandhi, indian, prime, minister, indira, gandhi, assassinated, october, 1984, residence, safdarjung, road, delhi, killed, bodyguards, satwant, singh, beant, singh, aftermath, operation, blue, star, indian, military, action, carried, betw. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated at 9 30 a m on 31 October 1984 at her residence in Safdarjung Road New Delhi She was killed by her bodyguards 1 Satwant Singh and Beant Singh in the aftermath of Operation Blue Star an Indian military action carried out between 1 and 8 June 1984 ordered by Indira Gandhi to remove Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his followers from the Golden Temple of Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar Punjab The collateral damage included the death of many pilgrims as well as damage to the Akal Takht 2 The military action on the sacred temple was criticized both inside and outside India citation needed Assassination of Indira GandhiThe spot where Gandhi was shot down is marked by a glass opening in the crystal pathway at the Indira Gandhi MemorialLocationPrime Minister residence Safdarjung Road New DelhiDate31 October 1984 9 30 a m Attack typeGun violenceWeapons 38 9 1 mm revolver and Sterling submachine gunVictimIndira GandhiAssailantsSatwant Singh and Beant Singh Memorial at the place of assassination Safdarjung Road New Delhi Contents 1 Operation Blue Star 2 Assassination 2 1 Funeral 3 Aftermath 4 See also 5 References 6 External linksOperation Blue Star EditOperation Blue Star was a large Indian military operation carried out between 1 and 8 June 1984 ordered by Indira Gandhi to remove leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his militant Sikh followers from the buildings of the Harmandir Sahib complex in Amritsar Punjab 3 The Indian army suffered around 83 casualties with 700 injuries and 450 500 Sikh rebels were killed during the operation The handling of the operation damage to the holy shrine and loss of military and civilian life on both sides led to widespread criticism of the Indian government citation needed The perceived threat to Gandhi s life increased after the operation 4 Accordingly Sikhs were removed from her personal bodyguard detail by the Intelligence Bureau for fear of assassination Gandhi thought that this would reinforce her anti Sikh image among the public however and she ordered the Delhi Police to reinstate her Sikh bodyguards 5 including Beant Singh who was reported to be her personal favorite 6 Assassination EditAt about 9 20 a m Indian Standard Time on 31 October 1984 Gandhi was on her way to be interviewed by British actor Peter Ustinov who was filming a documentary for Irish television She was accompanied by Constable Narayan Singh personal security officer Rameshwar Dayal and Gandhi s personal secretary R K Dhawan 7 She was walking through the garden of the Prime Minister s Residence at No 1 Safdarjung Road in New Delhi towards the neighboring 1 Akbar Road office 8 Gandhi passed a wicket gate guarded by Satwant and Beant Singh and the two men opened fire Beant fired three rounds into her abdomen from his 38 9 7 mm revolver 6 then Satwant fired 30 rounds from his Sterling sub machine gun after she had fallen to the ground 6 Both men then threw down their weapons and Beant said I have done what I had to do You do what you want to do In the next six minutes Border Police officers Tarsem Singh Jamwal and Ram Saran captured and killed Beant while Satwant was arrested by Gandhi s other bodyguards and an accomplice trying to escape he was seriously wounded 9 Satwant Singh was hanged in 1989 with accomplice Kehar Singh 10 Salma Sultan gave the first news of the assassination of Gandhi on Doordarshan s evening news on 31 October 1984 more than ten hours after she was killed 11 12 It is alleged by the Indian government that Gandhi s secretary R K Dhawan overruled intelligence and security officials who had ordered the removal of policemen as a security threat including her assassins 13 Beant was one of Gandhi s favorite guards whom she had known for ten years 6 Because he was a Sikh he had been taken off her staff after Operation Blue Star however Gandhi had made sure that he was reinstated 14 Satwant was 22 years old at the time of the assassination and had been assigned to Gandhi s guard just five months previously 6 Gandhi s blood stained saree and her belongings at the time of her assassination preserved at the Indira Gandhi Memorial Museum in New Delhi Gandhi was taken to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences New Delhi at 9 30 a m Doctors operated on her She was declared dead at 2 20 p m The postmortem examination was conducted by a team of doctors headed by Tirath Das Dogra who stated that 30 bullets had struck Gandhi from a Sterling sub machine gun and a revolver The assailants had fired 33 bullets at her of which 30 had hit 23 had passed through her body while seven remained inside Dogra extracted bullets to establish the identity of the weapons and to correlate each weapon with the bullets recovered by ballistic examination The bullets were matched to the weapons at CFSL Delhi The Indian government ordered a national mourning from November 1 to November 12 with flags half masted and canceled entertainment and cultural events and offices closed for several days 15 16 Pakistan 17 18 declared three days of mourning and Bulgaria declared a day of national mourning 19 Funeral Edit Gandhi s body was taken in a gun carriage through Delhi roads on the morning of 1 November to Teen Murti Bhavan where her father stayed and where she lay in state 8 She was cremated with full state honors on 3 November near Raj Ghat a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi at an area named Shakti Sthal Her elder son and successor Rajiv Gandhi lit the pyre Among the foreign dignitaries who attended the state funeral were 20 Country Dignitaries Algeria Abdelhamid Brahimi Prime Minister Australia Ninian Stephen Governor General Bob Hawke Prime Minister Bhutan Jigme Singye Wangchuck King Canada Brian Dickson Chief Justice Joe Clark Former Prime Minister and Secretary of State for External Affairs China Yao Yilin Vice Premier Czechoslovak Socialist Republic Lubomir Strougal Prime Minister East Germany Horst Sindermann President of the People s Chamber Fiji Penaia Ganilau Governor General Kamisese Mara Prime Minister France Laurent Fabius Prime Minister Indonesia Umar Wirahadikusumah Vice President Japan Yasuhiro Nakasone Prime Minister Jordan Prince Hassan bin Talal Crown Prince Kenya Mwai Kibaki Vice President Laos Souphanouvong President Kaysone Phomvihane Prime Minister Liberia Harry Moniba Vice President Mauritius Anerood Jugnauth Prime Minister Mongolian People s Republic T Ragchaa First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers Nauru Hammer DeRoburt President Nepal Lokendra Bahadur Chand Prime Minister New Zealand David Beattie Governor General David Lange Prime Minister North Korea Pak Song chol Vice President People s Republic of Bulgaria Todor Zhivkov General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party People s Republic of Kampuchea Heng Samrin President of the Council of State Chan Sy Prime Minister People s Republic of Mozambique Samora Machel President Poland Wojciech Jaruzelski Prime Minister Philippines Imelda Marcos First Lady South Korea Chae Mun shik Speaker of the National Assembly Soviet Union Nikolai Tikhonov Chairman of the Council of Ministers SFR Yugoslavia Veselin Đuranovic President Syria Zuhair Masharqa Vice President Farouk al Sharaa Foreign Minister Tanzania Julius Nyerere President Uganda Milton Obote President United Kingdom Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister Princess Royal Representing Her Majesty The Queen United States George Shultz Secretary of State 21 22 Vanuatu Ati George Sokomanu President Walter Lini Prime Minister Vietnam Trường Chinh President Phạm Văn Đồng Prime Minister Zambia Kenneth Kaunda President Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe Prime Minister Aftermath EditOver the next four days 8 000 Sikhs were killed in retaliatory violence 23 The Justice Thakkar Commission of Inquiry headed by Justice Manharlal Pranlal Thakkar set up to probe Gandhi s assassination recommended a separate probe for the conspiracy angle behind the assassination The Thakkar Report stated that the needle of suspicion pointed at R K Dhawan for complicity in the conspiracy 24 Satwant Singh and alleged conspirator Kehar Singh were sentenced to death Both were executed on 6 January 1989 25 A Punjabi movie titled Kaum De Heere Gems of the Community highlighting the roles lives of the two guards that assassinated Indira Gandhi was set to be released on 22 August 2014 but was banned by the Indian government 26 27 for five years 28 See also Edit India portalPunjab insurgencyReferences Edit 1984 Assassination and revenge BBC News 31 October 1984 Archived from the original on 15 February 2009 Retrieved 23 January 2009 Kiss Peter A 2014 Winning Wars amongst the People Case Studies in Asymmetric Conflict Illustrated ed Potomac Books p 100 ISBN 9781612347004 Archived from the original on 15 July 2018 Retrieved 15 July 2018 In operation Bluestar a force of several battalions occupied the holy precincts in a battle lasting several hours Bhindranwale and man of his associates were killed but there was a very large number of civilian casualties as well Swami Praveen 16 January 2014 RAW chief consulted MI6 in the build up to Operation Bluestar The Hindu Chennai India Operation Blue Star India s first tryst with militant extremism Dnaindia com 5 November 2016 Archived from the original on 3 November 2017 Retrieved 29 October 2017 Ghose Sagarika 28 December 2018 She Handpicked Him He Shot Her Dead readersdigest in Reader s Digest Retrieved 17 June 2020 a b c d e Smith William E 12 November 1984 Indira Gandhi s assassination sparks a fearful round of sectarian violence Time Archived from the original on 3 November 2012 Retrieved 19 January 2013 Dutta Prabhash K 31 October 2018 The last day of Indira Gandhi India Today a b 25 years after Indira Gandhi s assassination CNN IBN 30 October 2009 Archived from the original on 4 November 2011 Retrieved 5 September 2011 Questions still surround Gandhi assassination Times Daily New Delhi AP 24 November 1984 Retrieved 19 January 2013 Dr Sangat Kr Singh The Sikhs in History p 393 The riots that could not be televised Indianexpress com 3 November 2009 Archived from the original on 5 December 2009 Retrieved 31 March 2015 We the eyeballs Cover Story India Today Indiatoday intoday in Archived from the original on 15 December 2014 Retrieved 31 March 2015 Hazarika Sanjoy 28 March 1989 India Releases Stinging Report on Gandhi s Death The New York Times Archived from the original on 7 November 2017 Retrieved 5 February 2017 Ghose Sagarika 28 December 2018 She Handpicked Him He Shot Her Dead readersdigest in Reader s Digest Retrieved 17 June 2020 HT THIS DAY November 1 1984 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi shot dead 12 day mourning announced 31 October 2021 Crossette Barbara 6 January 1989 India Hangs Two Sikhs Convicted in Assassination of Indira Gandhi The New York Times Indira Gandhi assassinated Assassination Aftermath Olive Branches from Neighbors Pakistan Offers to Improve India Ties The New York Times 2 November 1984 Ukaz 3904 ot 1 noemvri 1984 g Obn DV br 88 ot 6 noemvri 1984 g MEA Annual Report 1984 85 Ministry of External Affairs Government of India 1985 Retrieved 13 June 2021 Reagan Others Express Shock Grief The Boston Globe Associated Press 1 November 1984 p 14 Secretary of State George P Shultz was named to head the official US delegation to Gandhi s funeral Bush asked why he would not represent the United States there as he often has at state funerals said Because I m involved in an election campaign I think people will understand Reagan Ronald 31 October 1984 Statement on the Assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India reaganlibrary gov Retrieved 27 October 2022 Nelson Dean 30 January 2014 Delhi to reopen inquiry in to massacre of Sikhs in 1984 riots The Telegraph Archived from the original on 12 January 2022 Retrieved 3 May 2016 Chawla Prabhu 15 April 1989 Thakkar Commission report leak Govt try to accuse Arun Nehru of being the main culprit India Today Retrieved 30 October 2018 Hazarika Sanjoy 7 January 1989 Protests Follow Hanging of 2 Sikhs The New York Times Vol 138 no 47743 Centre blocks release of controversial film on Indira Gandhi s assassins Kaum de Heere The Times of India Mumbai Times News Network 21 August 2014 Archived from the original on 21 November 2014 Retrieved 31 March 2015 Film on Indira Gandhi s assassins barred from release The Tribune Chandigarh India Press Trust of India 21 August 2014 Archived from the original on 3 March 2016 Retrieved 31 March 2015 Delhi HC clears release of Punjabi movie Kaum De Heere The Tribune Press Trust India 29 August 2019 Retrieved 15 September 2021 External links EditIndira Gandhi Memorial Indira Gandhi assassination books in Tamil in two volumes by Mrs Z Y Himsagar and S Padmavathi M A M L Notion press com Chennai 2016 edition ISBN 9789352065967 9789352065974 Explore the Virtual Memorial of Indira GandhiCoordinates 28 36 01 N 77 12 22 E 28 60028 N 77 20611 E 28 60028 77 20611 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Assassination of Indira Gandhi amp oldid 1146527028, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
