Operation Blue Star anniversary: 3 youths beaten up, detained for creating ruckus

Three youths who were trying to disrupt the ceremony to mark the 34th anniversary of Operation Blue Star in the Golden Temple were roughed up by members of the SGPC and detained by police, officials said.

The three unidentified youths were caught by the task force of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, the apex religious body of Sikhs, and beaten up before they were detained, police said.

Sikh hardliners, including a sizeable number of youths, raised pro-Khalistan slogans when the jathedar of Akal Takht, the supreme temporal seat of Sikhs, Gyani Gurbachan Singh, stood up to address the community from the takht platform.

The Sikh community all over the world will remember the wounds of Operation Blue Star, Gyani Gurbachan Singh told the gathering.

He said the Centre should return the historic and ancient books taken from the Sikh Reference Library of the Golden Temple during the Army operation in June 1984 to flush out Sikh separatist militants who were hiding inside the Golden Temple.

Angry Sikhs had accused the Army of desecrating the community's holiest shrine.

The jathedar also demanded that the Centre make public all the documents related to the operation so the Sikh community can know which government agencies, politicians or countries were behind it.

The president of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) party and former MP Simranjit Singh Mann also attended the anniversary commemoration.

Heavy security arrangements were made by the SGPC, civil administration and the police within and outside the Golden Temple.

The SGPC task force maintained vigil within the premises and the Akal Takht was heavily barricaded.

Police personnel were deployed in large numbers outside the shrine.

Amritsar was also partially shut down in response to a call given by Sikh radical outfit, Dal Khalsa.