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Onkar Singh in New Delhi
Former president of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee Jathedar Gurcharan Singh Tohra has threatened to file a defamation suit against former chief minister of Punjab Parkash Singh Badal and ex-Indian Administrative Services officer Sarabjit Singh for allegedly maligning him.
Talking to rediff.com in New Delhi on Wednesday, Tohra said that he was waiting for the release of the book Operation Black Thunder: An Eyewitness Account written by Sarabjit Singh before deciding the amount of damages he would seek from Badal and the author.
The book written by Sarabjit Singh reportedly accuses Tohra of being hand in glove with the government in organising Operation Bluestar in 1984. Based on the reported contents of the book, former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal had demanded that Tohra's 'complicity with the intelligence agencies' should be re-examined, as 'he was a part of the conspiracy to destroy Sikh religious institutions and destablise Punjab'.
Operation Bluestar was initiated by the Indian government under Mrs Indira Gandhi at the height of Punjab militancy on June 5, 1984 to flush out Khalistani terrorists led by Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who were holed up at the Golden Temple in Amritsar. The operation, which ended on June 9, partially destroyed the Akal Takht -- the highest seat of temporal authority of Sikhs. The government, along with the SGPC, later reconstructed the damaged portions of the temple. Eighty-three armymen were killed and 248 wounded. A total of 492 terrorists and others were killed and 86 injured. About 1500 people were captured, including a number of Pakistanis (source: www.bharat-rakshak.com).
"I have been maligned. It is strange that Badal has taken so many years to find out that I was involved in Operation Bluestar. I am waiting for the release of the book before deciding what to do next. I am definitely filing a defamation suit against Badal and Sarabjit Singh for bringing my name in disrepute," an angry Tohra told rediff.com.
Tohra denied that he had any understanding either with Mrs Gandhi or her son former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Talking about the 'secret meeting' he held with Rajiv Gandhi in January 1984, Tohra claimed, "In that meeting Rajiv Gandhi said that 'if they wanted to play a Hindu card then they would send the Indian army to Golden Temple complex, whereby the Congress would bag all the Hindu votes'."
"Though Rajiv Gandhi promised that under no circumstances the government would send troops to Harmandir Sahib, the government did exactly the opposite. I had narrated all these things to Sarabjit Singh and had even repeated them during my public speeches. Now they say that I betrayed the Sikh cause! This is disgusting," he said.
When asked if he had allowed the militants to regain control of the Golden Temple complex after he was re-elected president of the SGPC in 1986, Tohra said at that time Surjit Singh Barnala government was in power.
"It was for Barnala to take effective action and prevent entry of the militants into the Golden Temple. How can I be blamed for the inaction of the state government?" he asked.
Tohra said that he is now planning to write his own book so that the 'truth comes before the people of Punjab'.
"I think the time has come that I should pen down what I have known all these years. This would expose people like Badal who betrayed the Sikh cause," he said.
He also challenged Badal to appear before the Akal Takht and say the same things that he had told the media in Chandigarh last week.
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