Operation Bluestar: Britain's role 'very limited'

London: The British foreign secretary William Hague on Tuesday revealed that UK had a very limited role in the Amritsar massacre of 1984.Hague informed the British MPs that Margaret Thatcher did not play any role in the June 1984 forcible expulsion of Sikh militants from the Golden Temple in Amritsar, Sikhism's holiest shrine that left 1,000 dead.He also said that U.K. did not play any role in the operation by the Indian Army. In a meeting at the House of Commons, the Cabinet Secretary's report concluded that the nature of the UK's assistance was purely advisory, limited and provided to the Indian government at an early stage in their planning.A British military officer had also traveled to India during February 8-19, 1984 to advise the “Indian Intelligence Services and Special Group on contingency plans” being drawn up for an operation against militants in the temple complex, including ground reconnaissance of the site, the report said. On the letters that were revealed exchanged between the Indira Gandhi and her British counterpart Margaret Thatcher, Hague said “they made no reference to any UK assistance”.While admitting that some military files covering various operations were destroyed in November 2009 as part of a routine process undertaken by the Ministry of Defense, he said copies of some documents in the destroyed files were found in other departmental files. The probe also examined concerns raised by British MPs and by the Sikh community that parliament may have been misled about Operation Bluestar or that the decision to provide advice may have been linked to UK commercial interests.“The report finds no evidence to substantiate either of these allegations,” Hague said. The inquiry did not find any evidence that the provision of British advice was linked to “potential defense or helicopter sales, or to any other policy or commercial issue”. The only British request to the Indian government was for prior warning of any actual operation so that authorities could make appropriate security arrangements in London. “In the event, the UK received no warning from the Indian authorities before the operation was launched,” he said. The report by Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood included relevant sections of five more secret documents that shed light on this period but which would not normally have been published, the minister told MPs. “This giving of military advice was not repeated...and the Cabinet Secretary found no evidence of any other assistance such as equipment or training,” he added. Britain's only Sikh MP, Paul Uppal, spoke in the Commons to stress that the report makes clear that the UK played no “malicious” role in Operation Bluestar.He called on the government to work with Sikh groups and the Indian High Commission for a “process of truth and reconciliation so that the community can finally begin to feel a sense of justice”. A few months after Operation Bluestar that left more than 1,000 people dead, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in a revenge attack. The row over how much the British knew of the incidents 30 years ago threatens to derail Conservative party attempts to attract Sikh voters, who could play a major role in marginal seats in London and Leicester in any election. Sikh groups in the UK criticised the scope of the inquiry and claimed it focussed on a very “narrow period”. In a letter to Cameron, Sikh Federation UK chairman Bhai Amrik Singh said: “We are dismayed the terms of the review were only formally made available almost three weeks after the review was announced and only days before an announcement of the results of the review are expected in Parliament.”