Golden Temple Head Granthi refutes Indian Army's claims of guns deployment inside Harmandir Sahib to thwart Pakistan attack
PTC News Desk: Amid escalating tensions between India and Pakistan, a senior Army official had claimed that during the Operation Sindoor the Golden Temple management permitted Indian Army to deploy air defence guns within the shrine to counter potential drone and missile threats from Pakistan.
However soon after the revelations, head granthi of Sri Harmandir Sahib Head Granthi Giani Raghbir Singh explicitly denied the claims of permitting deployment of missile system and guns to thwart Pakistan's attack.
In an interview with news agency ANI, Indian Army's incharge of air defence Lt Gen Sumer Ivan D'Cunha informed that first time in the history, Golden Temple's lights were switched off to facilitate better detection and engagement of enemy drones, which helped the Indian defence forces spot and engage enemy drones more clearly.
"It was very nice that the Head Granthi of the Golden Temple allowed us to deploy our 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," Lt General D'Cunha further added.
Director General further said that the unprecedented cooperation from the Golden Temple authorities came after they were briefed on the gravity of the threat, following which Indian Army guns were deployed.
"Fortunately, we visualised what they (Pakistan) were capable of doing. Realising that they would target it because they had no legitimate targets across the border. They were more interested in creating confusion, chaos internally, and hence, we visualised that they would target our civil population and our religious places of worship," Lieutenant General D'Cunha said.
In response to the claims made by Lt D'Cunha, Giani Raghbir Singh said that on the contrary the Indian Army did not establish any contact with him or either concerned person of the authority and that he was on foreign tour during the Operation Sindoor.
Major General Seshadri, who also detailed the Indian Army’s operations at the Golden Temple, confirmed that all attacks on the Sikh shrine were successfully thwarted.
“The Pakistan Army has no legitimate targets to strike inside India, nor does it have the courage or capability to confront the Indian armed forces face to face. Hence, it uses terrorism as a state policy and resorts to launching unmanned aerial weapons from its own soil. They have even targeted religious places, particularly along the Indian border, a case in point being the Golden Temple in Amritsar, which witnessed a surge in drone and missile attacks that were bravely thwarted by our Army Air Defence gunners,” the Major said.
- PTC NEWS
