Operation Blue Star - Aftermath

Aftermath

At least 4000 Sikh soldiers mutinied at different locations in India in protest, with some reports of large-scale pitched battles being fought to bring mutineers under control.

The operation also led to the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on 31 October 1984 by two of her Sikh bodyguards, triggering the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The widespread killing of Sikhs, principally in the national capital Delhi but also in other major cities in North India, led to major divisions between the Sikh community and the Indian Government. The army withdrew from the Golden Temple later in 1984 under pressure from Sikh demands.

General A S Vaidya, the Chief of Army Staff at the time of Operation Blue Star, was assassinated in 1986 in Pune by two Sikhs, Harjinder Singh Jinda and Sukhdev Singh Sukha. Both were sentenced to death, and hanged on 7 October 1992.

Sikh militants continued to use and occupy the temple compound and on 1 May 1986, Indian paramilitary police entered the temple and arrested 200 militants that had occupied the Golden Temple for more than three months. On 2 May 1986 the paramilitary police undertook a 12-hour operation to take control of the Golden Temple at Amritsar from several hundred militants, but almost all the major radical leaders managed to escape. In June 1990, the Indian government ordered the area surrounding the temple to be vacated by local residents in order to prevent militant activity around the temple. Dr. Sangat Singh, member of Joint Intelligence Committee India, in his book, The Sikhs in history, mentions that almost half of these were fake Sikhs actually the RAW agents.