On UK cue, SGPC wants papers made public in India too

AMRITSAR: A day after a court in the UK ordered the government of that country to declassify documents relating to its purported role in Operation Bluestar in 1984 that was carried out to tackle militants at the Golden Temple complex, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) on Wednesday asked the Indian government to make the related documents public too.

In the UK, judge Murray Shanks, who presided over a three-day hearing of the First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights) in London in March, on Tuesday ruled that a majority of the files relating to the period must be made public.

He dismissed the British government’s argument that the move could damage diplomatic ties with India.

Hailing this ruling, SGPC president Gobind Singh Longowal said the “army attack” on Sri Harmandar Sahib and Akal Takht, highest temporal seat of the Sikhs, (in the complex) was an “inhuman excess” and “involvement of everyone in it should be exposed”.

“The move of the UK court is highly praiseworthy. Besides, contribution of freelance journalist Phil Miller, who has been investigating the exact nature of the then Margaret Thatcher-led government's assistance to the Indian Army operation on Golden Temple and pursued the case, is also appreciable,” Longowal said in a press release issued here on Wednesday.

He added, “Indian government should also make the documents public so that the word could know the role of different countries and other forces behind the attack”.

He also demanded that the repository of rare manuscripts and other literature taken away allegedly by the army from the Sikh Reference Library during Operation Bluestar should also be returned.