The Uttar Pradesh government has downgraded the security cover of a retired Brigadier who led Operation Blue Star at Amritsar’s Golden Temple in 1984.
Brigadier (retd) Israr Rahim Khan told The Hindu that a lone policeman accompanies him now, that too when he steps outdoor, against round-the-clock security provided to him all these years.
Recently, Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), a group advocating secessionist and pro-Khalistani activities in India, had offered $2,50,000 to anyone who could harm the team that led the Operation, which includes Mr. Khan.
The SFJ, banned by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in 2019, had recently posted a video detailing the role played by Brig. Khan and others. The video was blocked and pulled down by YouTube on the request of the Indian government.
“I carried out the task [Operation Blue Star) in the interest of the country when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister. I saved the country from division, from breaking into Khalistan. I had security all this while. Now suddenly the Uttar Pradesh government has withdrawn it,” said an anguished Brig. Khan.
The Army veteran said he was earlier accorded ‘Y’ category security by the MHA which entailed three personal security officers who provided proximate security through the day and six others for house protection.
“I am not a political person, I am a soldier. After what happened to General Vaidya, I do not trust anyone,” the Kirti Chakra awardee who lives in Noida, a city adjacent to Delhi, said.
General Arunkumar Shridhar Vaidya, Chief of Army Staff during Operation Blue Star, was gunned down at a traffic intersection in Pune in 1986, months after he retired from service.
Lieutenant-General (retd) Kuldeep Singh Brar, another key member of the team that led Op Blue Star, was attacked as he walked with his wife in central London in 2012.
A letter sent by Uttar Pradesh’s Local Intelligence Unit to Brig. Khan on January 21 said it has been decided at a State–level security meet that he will now be accorded ‘X’ category security.
Noida’s Commissioner of Police Alok Kumar Singh did not respond to call or text message.
The Operation Blue Star was the code name of the Army operation that cleared the Golden temple complex, Sikhism’s holiest shrine, of Sikh militants in 1984.
