Army Blames News Reports, Contradicts Corps Commander's Claim of Air Defence Guns at Golden Temple
The Wire Staff
New Delhi: The Indian army on Tuesday (May 20) evening confirmed the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee’s (SGPC) claim that no aerial defence guns were deployed at the premises of the Golden Temple in Amritsar during the recent India-Pakistan military conflict.
Notably, the army’s clarification effectively negates director general of army air defence Lieutenant General Sumer Ivan D’Cunha’s statement to ANI on Monday, in which he spoke about the deployment of air defence guns at the Golden Temple to neutralise aerial threats from Pakistan.
Lieutenant General D’Cunha’s remarks prompted a strong response from the SGPC, the primary administrative institution that manages the gurdwaras and Sikh institutions of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, earlier this morning. It had said that “no such permission [to deploy arms] was granted” to the army.
“It is incorrect to say that the army was given permission to deploy air defence guns at Sri Harmandir Sahib. No such permission was granted, and no such deployment occurred,” the SGPC’s additional head granthi Giani Amarjeet Singh said in a statement, rejecting Lieutenant General D’Cunha’s claims.
On Tuesday evening, Indian army sources, however, inexplicably attributed claims that were originally made by Lieutenant General D’Cunha to “some media reports”, and clarified that no air defence guns were deployed at the Golden Temple.
“Some media reports are circulating with respect to deployment of AD Guns in The Golden Temple. It is clarified that NO AD [air defence] guns or any other AD resource was deployed within the premises of Sri Darbar Sahib Amritsar (The Golden Temple),” the army said.
In his interview to ANI, Lieutenant General D’Cunha had said:
“It was very nice that the head granthi of the Golden Temple allowed us to deploy our air defence guns. It is possibly for the first time in many years that they switched off the Golden Temple lights so that we could see the drone coming. The unprecedented cooperation from the Golden Temple authorities came after they were briefed about the gravity of the threat, following which the guns were deployed.”
He claimed that the “the Golden Temple hierarchy” cooperated with the armed forces after realising that there was “possibly a threat”.
“They allowed us to deploy guns to secure and protect the monument of international fame, which is visited by hundreds and thousands of people every day. Hence, these guns were deployed, and the golden temple lights were switched off so that we could clearly visualise the drones as they were coming in. That gave us a greater clarity in the sky, because as and when you saw the light, you knew what to engage,” he claimed.
On Monday, the army’s 15 Infantry Division based in Amritsar confirmed many of Lieutenant General D’Cunha’s assertions in an official media briefing. While giving a briefing about the felled drones and missiles from Pakistan, it claimed that the Indian L-70 air defence systems and AKASH missile systems were used to neutralise aerial threats “aimed at the Golden Temple” and other places in Punjab.
Earlier, Major General Kartik C. Seshadri, the general officer commanding of the 15 Infantry Division had told ANI that the drones and missiles from Pakistan were specifically aimed at the Golden Temple, but that the Indian army “did not allow even a scratch to come on our holy Golden Temple”.
Responding to such claims, the SGPC’s Giani Amarjeet Singh rejected any claims of deployment of air defence systems at the Golden Temple but confirmed that the administration had contacted the Temple to switch off “the exterior and upper lights of the complex within a specified time frame” during the city-wide black-out.
The SGPC said that it had fully cooperated with the request but “the claim made by the senior army officer that the head granthi gave permission for deploying air defence guns during Operation Sindoor is completely false.”
Later, SGPC president and advocate Harjinder Singh Dhami also asserted that “there was no contact from any army official regarding the installation of air defence guns at Sri Harmandir Sahib”.
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