'It was like losing a member ofmy own family'
Thatcher ignored death threats to attend Indira Gandhi's funeral
Former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher had received death threats to her life in the wake of Indira Gandhi's assassination in October 1984, according to newly- declassified UK government documents.
Thatcher, who described the former Indian prime minister as a member of her own family, flew to New Delhi to attend her funeral on November 3 that year against the backdrop of at least two documented threats to her life.
According to a telegram to the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) released under the 30-year declassification rule at the National Archives in Kew, south-west London, the British embassy in Helsinki had received a telephone call from a man with a Middle Eastern or Asian accent who said: "I have a feeling there is going to be an attack on Mrs Thatcher. I have never been wrong before." A second telegram records a telephone communication between an anonymous caller and a French operator in Paris: "This is the IRA. Tell your security that we are sending a gunman to New Delhi and he will be a threat to Margaret Thatcher."
The threats would have assumed greater significance as Thatcher had survived an assassination attempt just weeks earlier when the separatist Irish Republican Army (IRA) exploded a bomb at the Conservative Party conference in Brighton on October 12, 1984.
The then UK foreign secretary, Geoffrey Howe, was understandably concerned and sent the following note to the British High Commission in New Delhi.
He expressed concerns of a possible Sikh dimension to the threat, given that Gandhi's own Sikh security guards had been implicated in her murder.
The close bond shared by the two world leaders is also reflected in her personal note to Gandhi's son and successor, Rajiv Gandhi, soon after the news of his mother's death broke.
She wrote, "I cannot describe to you my feelings at the news of the loss of your mother, except to say that it was like losing a member of my own family. Our many talks together had a closeness and mutual understanding which will always remain with me. She was not just a great statesman but a warm and caring person. I want you and Sonia to know how deeply Dennis (Thatcher's husband) and I feel for you both, for your whole family and for your country, she said.