General Arun Vaidya

General Arun Shridhar Vaidya was an armoured corps officer who served as Chief of the Army Staff from 1983 until he retired on 31 January 1986. He won the Maha Vir Chakra for the 1965 war and a second one for 1971, and ThePrint notes that only six Indians have won it twice. Sikhs remember him as the Army chief under whom the army attacked the Harmandir Sahib complex in June 1984.

Key moments

• June 1984: Operation Blue Star, the army attack on Sri Harmandir Sahib and Sri Akal Takht Sahib. ThePrint writes that the task of clearing the complex fell to him, though the army had no role in law and order in Punjab.
• 1 to 3 November 1984: during the Delhi pogrom he was still Army chief. Major General J. S. Jamwal, who commanded the Delhi area, told the Nanavati Commission that around 11 am on 1 November he received a message from the Chief of the Army Staff to be ready if the civil authorities asked for help. The commission also recorded one official's statement that the decision to call in the army was taken at 1.30 pm that day, and a witness's statement that the army was not made effective until 3 November.
• 31 January 1986: he retires.
• 10 August 1986: he is shot dead at the wheel of his Maruti 800 in Pune, where he was building a home. ThePrint says two men on a motorcycle shot him, and the Supreme Court judgment records that the pillion rider fired three shots at his head from close range. UPI, reporting on 18 August 1986, said four gunmen on a motorcycle and a scooter shot him. His wife Bhanu, beside him, was wounded. UPI reported that the police believed the killing was revenge for Blue Star, and the Khalistan Commando Force claimed responsibility (Mail Today). ThePrint says he had only one police gunman.
• 1987 to 1992: Harjinder Singh Jinda and Sukhdev Singh Sukha were tried by the Designated Court at Pune, which sentenced both to death on 21 October 1989, subject to confirmation. The Supreme Court confirmed the sentences on 15 July 1992 and they were hanged at Pune on 9 October 1992.

How the killing is seen. The courts treated it as murder. Sikh institutions honour the two men who carried it out. In October 2012 The Hindu reported that the SGPC had declared Jinda and Sukha martyrs for avenging Operation Blue Star, and that the anniversary of their hanging has been observed at Sri Akal Takht Sahib since 1992. Congress and BJP leaders criticised the observance.

What he is remembered for: two memories sit side by side. In the army and in ThePrint's account, a decorated war hero who was left badly protected. Writing on the 40th anniversary, Shekhar Gupta said the army marked the day with no commemoration. In Sikh memory, the head of the army at Blue Star, whose killers Sikh institutions honour as martyrs.