The Guardian - Thursday 7th June 1984

Eric Silver. New Dehli

The last 22 Sikh fanatics defying the Indian Army in the Golden Temple of Amritsar surrendered under a white flag yesterday, more than 24 hours after the infantry units stormed this holiest of Sikh shrines.

A military spokesman in the Punjab state capital, Chandigarh, announced that the main operation had now ended, but mopping up was continuing.

According to unofficial reports a smaller group was still holding out in the fortified basement of a second building, the Akal Takht (the Seat of God). It was not immediately known whether the extremist leader, Mr Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, was among those who gave themselves up or was still resisting.

The terrorists had earlier threatened to blow up the temple, which contains the Sikh testament, rather than capitulate. The bloody battle for the Golden Temple cost at least 293 lives, but the building itself was said to have escaped undamaged.

The commander of the operation, Lieutenant-General Sunderji, announced in Chandigarh that 48 soldiers, including one officer, had been killed. Another 12 soldiers were missing, presumed dead, and 110 soldiers, including 10 officers, had been wounded.

On the terrorist side, the general said that 250 had been killed and 50 wounded. The army had captured 450, along with five medium machine guns, 20-25 light machine guns, 200 rifles, 50 sten guns and a number of anti-tank missiles and rocket launchers. The terrorists were reported to have fired several Swedish-made missiles, one of which hit an armoured personnel carrier.

The two relatively moderate leaders who had taken sanctuary in the temple complex, Mr Harehand Singh Longowal and Mr Gurcharan Singh Tohra, surrendered without a struggle two hours after the army penetrated the walls.

In New Delhi, a senior Government spokesman attributed the high casualty rates among the security forces to the restraint they had exercised to avoid damaging the Golden Temple, a marble and gold leaf wedding cake of a building in the middle of a baptismal lake, and the second Sikh shrine, the Akal Takht.

Lieut-Gen Ranjit Singh Dayal, the Sikh overall commander of the troops employed in Punjab since the weekend, acknowledged in Chandigarh that part of the Akal Takht was acknowledged to have been hit during the fighting.

Military sources were astonished at the presence of such sophisticated weapons as medium machine guns and rockets in the terrorists' arsenal. They had also underestimated the number of armed men within the rambling temple complex which includes hostels, soup kitchens and offices.

The Permanent Head of the Home Ministry, Mr M. K. Wali added in New Delhi: "We believe this action will break the back of the terrorist movement."

None the less, nine civilians were killed in the 24 hours up to last night in five terrorist incidents in villages near Amritsar, official sources announced. The army and police have also taken over 38 temples and other Sikh religious buildings throughout Punjab, capturing an unspecified number of wanted men and their arms. Both men denied reports that hundreds of Sikhs were marching on Amritsar from the countryside.

First reverberations were, however, being felt among Sikhs outside Punjab.

The Government alerted all states to take adequate precautions against possible attempts to disrupt communal harmony after one person was killed and police jeeps and buses were attacked by Sikh mobs in different places.

One constable of Kashmir armed police was killed and another seriously injured when Sikh youths clashed with the police in Jammu.

The youths, who shouted slogans against the army action in Amritsar, hijacked a police bus standing on the roadside and, when the policemen tried to stop them, one of them was crushed to death by the moving vehicle while another was seriously injured.

The Sikhs also burnt two police jeeps and a truck and lobbed a bomb on a police patrol injuring 20 policemen.

In New Delhi, security arrangements were tightened and a ban on the assembly of more than four people and the carrying of weapons was imposed for a week after Sikh students damaged three buses.

Meanwhile, the Delhi unit of the militant Sikh party, the Akali Dal, called for a shutdown strike in the capital today to protest against the army's entry into the Golden Temple.

Mr Wall of the Home Ministry commented: "The government assessment is that there may be some incident, but if the senseless killing can be stopped, if normalcy can be restored to Punjab, most people, Sikhs as well as Hindus would welcome it."

The curfew, imposed in all urban areas of Punjab since Sunday, was lifted briefly in Chandigarh yesterday, but was restored last night.