The assassination of Canadian Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, carried out by the Indian intelligence agency on June 18 last year, triggered a diplomatic crisis between India and Canada. At the same time, it reverberated the echoes of the Operation Blue Star, which has been the darkest hour of Sikh history.
R. K.Yadav, former RAW officer, in his book RAW Mission, disclosed how RAW leader and politicians of India brutalized Sikhs in Operation Blue Star. Some details are excerpted as follows:
Girish Chander Saxena was the first officer of Indian Police Service to become the head of RAW. Prior to his appointment, he served in the Indian High Commission in London.
Saxena’s tenure as Chief of RAW was the most disastrous as far as political scenario of this country was concerned. Terrorism in Punjab mushroomed where Saxena could not keep tab on his origin from Pakistan. Most of the outposts of RAW on the border areas were shut down by him fearing safety of RAW operatives there. He posted a low caliber officer Rakesh Mittal at Amritsar, which further demoralized the already sagged morale of the junior cadre. Rest is history wherein thousands of innocents were massacred in terrorism in Punjab. Saxena advised Indira Gandhi to go for “Blue Star” but did not warn her of its repercussions. These unpresented events took place during the period when Saxena was Chief of RAW.
Blame Shift
Prior to the Operation Blue Star, Indira Gandhi issued a statement that intelligence agencies like RAW failed in Punjab due to the recruitment of casteist elements during the regime of Bhartiya Janata Party in 1977 to 1979. Her remarks were directed towards the Sikh community. This statement was issued at the behest of Saxena. Later, a senior Sikh officer of RAW informed that Saxena, in order to distract his utter failure to quell terrorism, misguided Indira Gandhi that Sikh officers in RAW at every level were having soft corner to those who were fomenting terrorism in Punjab. This prompted Indira Gandhi to give such unwarranted statements about intelligence agencies in general and RAW in particular. Soon after the Operation Blue Star, Saxena on his own removed all Sikh officers from sensitive desks of RAW and an atmosphere of distrust was created by him among this community who were loyal to the core of while working in RAW. Saxena tried to create a wedge on religious grounds within RAW after Blue Star which took years to redeem honour of Sikhs.
Hypocritical politician
Saxena was made Governor of Jammu and Kashmir on May 26, 1990 for a period of three years by Atal Bihari Vajpyee wherein Shiromani Akali Dal of Punjab was the ruling partner.
I fail to understand as to how this political clan of India is working in deaf and dumb manner. Were the NDA in general were not aware that Saxena was RAW Chief during Operation Blue Star when sacrilege was committed in the Golden Temple in June 1984 and without his recommendation Indira Gandhi would not have taken that drastic step against the Sikh community. These politicians occupy coveted positions without remembering even the sins committed by a particular person against the whole community and decorated him with the governorship of Jammu and Kashmir. Such acts are pardonable or not, should be asked by them from their own conscious, when the whole community of Sikhs was traumatized due to the Operation Blue Star.