Open Secrets: The Explosive Memoirs of an Indian Intelligence Officer (51 page)

I was driven blind folded to a
behak
(a firm cottage) between Sirhali Kalan and Patti around two in the morning. We met the ‘dreaded’ terrorist in an underground bunker that was well stocked with ISI supplied Kalashnikov rifles, grenade firing rifles and machine guns. Over a glass of buttermilk and mortared and fried maize we discussed the letter written by Jasbir. Manochahal was in no mood to give a written commitment. His views were pretty clear. The militants were divided and area chieftains controlled their individual armed groups. There was no centralised command. For the first time we came to know from the horses mouth that Pakistan was not happy with the performance of the Panthic Committee and wanted better indoctrinated leadership to take over the command of the movement. I persuaded him to scribble a cryptic note allowing Jasbir to go ahead with the talks, subject to approval of the Panthic Committee, Dam Dami Taksal and a consortium of top terrorist leaders.

We parted company after about three hours and I was blindfolded before being driven back to Amritsar by the journalist friend. I had occasions to walk into the dens of top terrorists earlier in my life. But way back in seventies the Naga and Meitei insurgents were more chivalrous and observed a war code of their own. But the insurgent groups in Punjab rarely observed such chivalrous code of conduct. They were maddened by communal and religious hatred and vengeance, which acted as killer toxins. No room was given and they did not expect the state to spare the bullets.

It was left to me to negotiate the terms for releasing Jasbir Singh Rode, Kashmir Singh, Savinder Singh and Jaswant Singh, the militant appointed
Akal Takht
jathedar
and the high priests. After prolonged
barga
ining the following points were charted out for the approval of the Prime Minister:

·
        
Release of old, ailing and minor Sikh detainees from Jodhpur and other jails;

·
        
To arrange installation of Jasbir as the
Jathedar
of
Akal Takht
;

·
        
To provide adequate weapons to enable him to drive out the killer gangs entrenched in different rooms of the ‘
parikrama
’ of the Golden Temple and other secret locations;

·
        
Release of Gurdev Singh Kaonke, the acting
jathedar
of
Akal Takht
;

·
        
To facilitate Jasbir’s free movement with a view to contacting the top militant leaders for consultations;

·
        
Formation of negotiation committees by the Panthic Committee and the government to hold peace talks;

·
        
To set up temporary camps for the surrendered militants and to arrange for their rehabilitation in useful vocations;

·
        
Holding of a
Sarbat Khalsa
at Bhatinda on the Baisakhi day (April 13) 1988 for announcing the final settlement with the government of India and formal scrapping of the declaration of Khalistan;

·
        
Time bound surrender of arms by the militant groups; and

·
        
Declaration of a special economic package for Punjab and immediate handing over of Chandigarh to Punjab.

The ten-point formula was submitted to the Prime Minister in early January 1988. I was deputed to meet the leaders of the Dam Dami Taksal and a few members of the Panthic Committee to discuss the formula.

This time around I was assisted by Capt. (hon.) Harcharan Singh, Jasbir’s uncle, Rajdev Singh Barnala, who was elected to the parliament in 1989 and Harjinder Singh, a very well meaning young associate of Jasbir from village Ramdas.

The formula was acceptable to the majority of leaders of Dam Dami Taksal. A minority faction headed by Mohkam Singh opposed it. At least three leaders of the Panthic Committee and militant leaders like Atinderpal Singh, Avtar Singh Brahma, and Gurbachan Singh Manochahal too approved the formula. The latter, however, insisted on a ceasefire agreement to facilitate free movement of the leaders for consultations. Baba Joginder Singh, father of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, agreed with the formula. But Wassan Singh Jaffarwal and ‘General’ Labh Singh opposed the idea. Surprisingly some opposition was faced from Gurjit Singh, though he was married in the family of Bhindranwale. Gurjit’s recalcitrance was not surprising. He was in direct touch with the ISI operatives.

However, things did not shape on the expected lines. Rajiv Gandhi must have had discussions with his ministerial and bureaucratic aides on the formula. The appointment of Satish Sharma as the point man was a big blunder. His knowledge about Punjab was limited to the accented Punjabi he spoke. He was not at all interested in seizing the opportunity and helping his friend out. An apolitical politician, Satish Sharma was more interested in gathering more than sufficient hay while the sun shone. It was a great disappointment to interact with Rajiv Gandhi’s point man. I felt the absence of R. K. Dhawan, who understood politics better than seasoned politicians.

Sardar Buta Singh could not be blamed for possessing the uncanny but catty sixth sense. That was the essence of his survival game in politics. Our efforts to keep him and Sushil Muni out of the negotiations were simply frustrated. The Intelligence Bureau was bound by systemic protocol to regularly brief the immediate boss, the home minister. With Buta Singh in the picture the elegant and fascinatingly dressed secretary of Sushil Muni, a femme fatale, was not supposed to be in the dark.

I was summoned to the official residence of the home minister and was remonstrated for handling a dangerous operation at his back. My defence was very simple. I received my orders from my boss and he was the golden end of the link-chain that connected the prime intelligence organisation with the government. He did not like the answer and directed me to keep Sushil Muni informed. I opposed the idea vehemently as I was a mute witness to the earlier mismanaged operation in which Tarlochan Singh Riyasti lost his life. I was not ready to offer my neck to the chopping block, where sex, greed and black machinations received priority over national interest.

Satish Sharma, Buta Singh and Sushil Muni were not enough to spoil the broth. The Punjab Governor, Sidhartha Shankar Ray, was keen on trying his Calcutta day’s Naxal elimination experiment. A section of the state police and administration too was opposed to the idea of losing a lucrative means of earning extra bucks at the cost of human misery. Some of these elements connived with a section of senior Delhi politicians and stiffly opposed the idea of negotiations with a nephew of Bhindranwale. To top the woes of the government a section of officers in the Intelligence Bureau too opposed the operation, simply because it was being accomplished by a non-coterie adventurer and not by them. This group of Intelligence Bureau officials, headed by A K Doval was aligned to the action plan of home minister Buta Singh, Governor Ray and the Police chief K.P.S. Gill.

The IB itself was divided from within.

In fact, Rajiv Gandhi’s control on the divergent elements was minimal. He did not work on a centralised blueprint for his latest ‘peace initiative’ and his political and bureaucratic brain trusts were not unified under one single command. Therefore, the peace initiative was very often jarred and jolted by forces from within and without.

Briefly returning to the Punjab police and administration I must comment that the top command and various links in between firmly believed that brutal suppression was the only remedy to contain acts of terrorism. In the process they indulged in planned and unplanned killing of innocent youths. They detained the villagers informally and extorted money for releasing them. Even women were not spared.

Use of force is an integral part of anti-insurgency operations. But that has to be tempered with various layers of civil administration’s healing touches and political sagacity. The police acted for earning their daily bread and much more. But the politicians did not behave like statesmen. They too believed in living from hour to hour. They did not plan for the long-term measures that could heal the wounds permanently.

I have a feeling that in a country where constitutional liberty is the essence of democracy all such state actions should be tempered with human rights considerations and constitutional guarantees. Some politicians and bureaucrats can treat the country as their private chattel. Has there been a human rights accounting in the Punjab? No. Therein lay the wide gap between proclaimed democracy and constitutional liberty.

Not everyone in the Sikh militant movement was enamoured of Bhindranwale’s family. The Dam Dami Taksal’s preponderance in the peace initiative was not acceptable to the SGPC and the SAD. A section of the hardliner Sikh intellectuals headed by Dr. Sohan Singh and most of the leaders of the Sikh diaspora were opposed to the idea of a peaceful settlement.

Cardinal opposition came from the Inter Services Intelligence of Pakistan. Pakistan had conveyed to Wassan Singh Jaffarwal (rehabilitated by Prakash Singh Badal in 2001), Dr. Sohan Singh and some of the KCF and Babbar Khalsa leaders that they were ready with free supply of arms and ammunitions and advanced communication technology to help the Sikhs in their war of liberation. An emissary of Dr. Sohan Singh (now rehabilitated) was contacted by Pakistan at Kathmandu and was given a sizeable monetary incentive for sabotaging Delhi’s peace initiative. The idea to supersede the 1st Panthic Committee and form a more stridently militant 2nd Panthic Committee too was mooted by Pakistan. Dr. Sohan Singh and the hardliners had fallen to the Pakistani trap.

The militant movement in Punjab was highly criminalized by 1988. The Bhindranwale toxin was replaced by the lure of easy money, banditry, sex and land grabbing. Most of the militant leaders had managed to amass wealth and property in and outside Punjab. A section of the law and order machinery too had fallen for easy gains. They were not interested in ending the cycle of violence.

In fact, I was swimming against several opposing currents amidst preparations by the state government to launch a decisive operation against the terrorists entrenched inside the Golden Temple complex. The situation prevailing in Punjab countryside called for drastic police action and K.P.S. Gill was prepared with his battle order.

Rajiv Gandhi’s peace pigeon was made to flutter through an air surcharged with cordite and cluttered with flying bullets. Contradictory forces had haunted the operation from day one. But I was assigned to a thorny job and was supposed to conclude it successfully.

This is a classical example of how the entire machinery suffered because of lack of institutionalised control on the executive segments by the apex constitutional bodies in the country.

*

The final nod from the government to release Jasbir Singh Rode and the three high priests came in end February 1988, and they were released on March 3. A statement in the parliament by P. Chidambaram followed this that the release was part of a bigger peace initiative. But we had lost the element of surprise and had allowed the opposing forces to strengthen their battlements. Pakistan had already stepped in to frustrate the peace initiatives by literally opening up the sluice gate flooding Punjab with sophisticated weapons and explosives.

Amidst loud cacophony in the media Jasbir Singh and his party were flown in a special DC3, escorted by Kalyan Rudra and me. At Amritsar airport they were received by a huge assorted gathering of militants and AISSF members and were driven straight to the Golden Temple. They were housed in a couple of rooms above the ‘
parikrama
’. Before their departure they were supplied with a sizeable quantity of licensed non-prohibited bore weapons and ammunitions.

Jasbir’s arrival was greeted by volley of automatic fire in the air by the holed in militants. It was difficult to determine which group fired out of jubilation and which one out of indignation. Jagir Singh and Nirvair Singh, two killer representatives of the KCF and KLF, were opposed to the arrival of Jasbir. Their disapproval was demonstrated by an attempted assault on the living quarters of Jasbir. This was repulsed by the combined forces of a section of the holed in Babbar Khalsa and armed followers of AISSF and Dam Dami Taksal. The police forces occupying the higher positions at Brahmbuta Akhara and other buildings observed the queer developments in the temple complex.

From the beginning of 1988 Jagir Singh had started behaving like the Bhindranwale of 1983-84. Assisted by a criminal turned terrorist Nirvair Singh he held court, dispensed justice and ordered spot assassination of the dissenters. Most of the dead bodies were either dumped in the gutter or thrown into the basement after treating the corpses with lime and salt. Soon after Jasbir’s arrival in the Golden Temple, Jagir Singh had succeeded in cobbling up an opposing group with help from Malkiat Singh Ajnala, Gurjant Singh, and Nishan Singh, etc. A huge consignment of arms and ammunitions was also received from Pakistan.

Jasbir Singh Rode’s
tajposhi
(crowning) as the
jatherdar
was done on March 9 in a glittering ceremony attended by second rung members of the Panthic Committee, Dam Dami Taksal, AISSF, KCF, KLF and the BTFK and others. P.S. Badal, the eminent Akali leader was present too. The Babbar Khalsa maintained a scrupulous distance, as it did not approve of the hegemony of the Taksal brand of Sikh rituals. A few SAD and SGPC leaders were conspicuously present to crown the new
jathedar
. It was a day of victory and it was day of the beginning of defeat.