Lt Gen Ranjit Singh Dyal

Lt Gen Ranjit Singh Dyal (also spelled Dayal; Rediff writes Ranjit Dyal) was an Indian Army officer who held the key post of Adviser (Security) to the Governor of Punjab during Operation Blue Star, the Army's attack on Sri Harmandir Sahib and Sri Akal Takht Sahib in June 1984. All India Radio announced the appointment on 2 June 1984, describing him as Chief of Staff of the Western Command (Gurmit Singh, History of Sikh Struggles, vol. III). The same book says he was in charge of Operation Blue Star.

Before 1984: Rediff reports that in 1965, as a young major with the 1st Para, he led a team of soldiers that captured the Haji Pir pass, and that he was awarded the Maha Vir Chakra for it.

In Operation Blue Star: Gurmit Singh quotes a Kumaon Regiment naik who took part. The naik says that on the night of 5 and 6 June 1984, after two parties of thirty soldiers had come under heavy fire on the parikarma, "General R.S. Dyal lost his cool and ordered that tanks be moved in", and that seven tanks then went into action. The book adds that, according to keen observers, Dyal aged at least ten years in the six months after the operation. The World Sikh Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York on 29 July 1984 called on Sikhs to boycott him and Major General K. S. Brar, whom it described as the leaders of the army action in the Golden Temple. In his second letter of protest to President Zail Singh, reprinted in the book, Simranjit Singh Mann, who had resigned from the Indian Police Service, wrote that not even Timur the Lame and Nadir Shah rained such devastation as the Indian armed forces under the command of Dyal and Brar. The allegations in the letter are Mann's own.

After 1984: The Andaman and Nicobar Administration's press release of 30 January 2012 lists him as a former Lieutenant Governor of the islands, from 25 February 1990 to 18 March 1993, and as a holder of the Param Vishisht Seva Medal and the Maha Vir Chakra.

Key moments

• 1965: leads the capture of the Haji Pir pass and is awarded the Maha Vir Chakra.
• 2 June 1984: All India Radio names him Adviser (Security) to the Governor of Punjab.
• 5 and 6 June 1984: a Kumaon Regiment naik says he ordered tanks to be moved in.
• 29 July 1984: the World Sikh Convention calls for a boycott of him and General Brar.
• 25 February 1990 to 18 March 1993: Lieutenant Governor of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
• January 2012: his death is announced.

What he is remembered for: in the Army, for the capture of Haji Pir; among Sikhs, as one of the two generals, with Brar, whom the World Sikh Convention told the Panth to boycott after Operation Blue Star.