Blue Star spawned myths, emotional knots. Our TV series talks about all sides.

That Cruel June

Hours before Operation Blue Star in June 1984, gun-toting youths ordered SAD leaders Harcharan Singh Longowal and Gurcharan Singh Tohra to announce the formation of Khalistan to a ‘box’ linked, they said, to Gen Zia-ul-Haq in Pakistan. It would be followed by an attack by Pakistan, they were told.
Tohra persuaded the youth to leave after saying that in all fitness, the announcement should be made by Bhindranwale, who was leading the agitation for a separate state
Eyewitnesses recall that abusive army jawans, enraged possibly at the killing of colleagues, lined up unarmed youth and shot them dead. Some jawans indulged in looting.
Bhindranwale and his followers were going to the Akal Takht to pray on the morning of June 6 when he fell to shots fired from a tank, recalls associate Balwinder Singh Khojkipur
My “involvement” with Operation Blue Star began on the morning of May 30, 1984 when, during a routine visit to…