Britain admits it advised India on Operation Bluestar

February 04, 2014 19:00

The British government has confirmed that it DID advise India on planning Operation Bluestar to flush out militants from the Golden Temple in 1984

Prime Minister David Cameron had ordered a probe after documents released under a 30-year declassification rule stated an officer of the elite Special Air Service travelled to Delhi and advised the Indian government as it framed plans for removing the militants in February 1984.

Two letters released from the National Archives in London, both marked "top secret and personal", revealed details of the advice given to Indian authorities by the SAS.

One document, a letter from then Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe's private secretary to his counterpart in the Home Office, warned that the operation could trigger tensions in Britain's Indian community, "particularly if knowledge of the SAS involvement were to become public".

It is unclear whether the plan referred to in the documents was used by the Indian government.

A few months after Operation Bluestar, then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in an apparent revenge attack.

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