Sardar Bhan Singh

Sardar Bhan Singh was Secretary of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) in June 1984 and was inside the Sri Harmandir Sahib complex during Operation Blue Star. Gurmit Singh's History of Sikh Struggles quotes him as an eye-witness to the whole operation, drawing on the monthly Khande Dhar of November 1984. The 1984 Sikh Archive and All About Sikhs repeat parts of his account; All About Sikhs says its writers met him at the SGPC office at Guru Nanak Nivas. What follows is his account, reported as his, and is one of several witness accounts of those days.

What he reported: According to Bhan Singh, the CRPF fired on the complex from all directions on 1 June 1984; one man, Kulwant Singh, died at Baba Atal and five Sikhs at Sri Akal Takht Sahib, and 32 bullet marks were counted on the walls of the sanctum. At 4.40 a.m. on 4 June machine-gun and cannon fire began without warning. At 5.15 p.m. on 5 June two Sikhs brought a message from a Deputy Superintendent of Police, Apar Singh, that the Army would stop firing from 4 to 5.30 p.m. so that pilgrims could leave (the book prints these times as given, although the pause is said to begin before the message arrived). Gurcharan Singh Tohra and Sant Harchand Singh Longowal asked Bhan Singh, with Abinashi Singh and Balwant Singh, to get the pause extended by an hour; firing resumed more heavily instead.

On 6 June, he said, the Army entered Teja Singh Samundri Hall and led Longowal, Tohra and Bibi Amarjit Kaur away, and about 250 Sikhs gathered in the courtyard of Guru Ram Das Sarai, where grenades were thrown on them and Jathedar Bagga Singh was killed. When wounded SGPC employees asked him for medical help, he went to an Army Major, who was ordering the shooting of 35 or 36 Sikh boys standing with their hands up; when Bhan Singh asked for medical aid, the Major, in this account, became red with rage and shouted shoot orders. He ran for his life and saved himself by hiding, and reached the room where Tohra and Longowal had been made to sit. The boys were shot at about 8.30 a.m. At 4 p.m., in his account, Longowal and Tohra, with ten others, were escorted out of the complex.

Key moments

• 1 June 1984: CRPF firing on the complex begins (his account).
• 4 June, 4.40 a.m.: the Army operation starts without warning (his account).
• 5 June, 5.15 p.m.: the message of a pause in firing, and the request to extend it.
• 6 June, about 8.30 a.m.: the shooting of the Sikh boys (his account).
• 6 June, 4 p.m.: Longowal and Tohra are escorted out of the complex.

Remembered for: his statement is one of the main accounts from inside the SGPC office of how the operation felt to those who were there, and it records the Major's order to shoot youths standing with their hands up. The accounts say nothing of his life before or after those days.