While Ramgarh’s people condemned Operation Blue Star, they were cold to the mutineers as well, recalls Mahendra Kumar
The news of the soldiers’ operation at the Golden Temple
in Amritsar came to us regularly, but from unconfirmed sources. At the time of Operation Blue Star the broadcast and print media were much less active than they now are. For the most part people depended on the BBC or the AIR, or waited for the next day’s newspapers from Ranchi and Patna. Rampur’s former member of the legislative assembly, Yamuna Sharma, still remembers the day – June 7, 1984 – when it had looked like all was finished.
Ranjit Mishra, who was just 20 years old at the time, recalls the unnerving calm that pervaded the Sikh Regimental Centre. It was around 7:30 A.M. of June 7 that the people of Ramgarh heard of the soldiers’ mutiny. They were rebelling against Operation Bluestar. People had begun collecting outside the regimental centre on the national highway, stood on the roof of houses nearby, and even on tree tops to catch a glimpse of the goings on inside its premises. Some 400 to 500 armed youth had made it till the highway, hopped into which ever vehicle passed their way and started moving towards Hazaribagh. It was only then that people realised that they were all rebellious recruits.
Numbering some 1,500, they had broken into the armoury and killed the centre’s commandant, Brigadier S. C. Suri, after they were stopped. Pramod Aggarwal, a businessman, was on the crowded highway when the recruits came, and he remembers how within minutes it was deserted by the general public. For, though they harmed nobody in Rampur city the recruits’ approach was excessively aggressive. All were armed and firing blindly. Clearly, they were ready to kill and get killed. Since television had not yet arrived, news of successive developments was slow to travel. Recalls Yamuna Sharma: “Mr Narayanan of the Intelligence Bureau, who was posted in Ramgarh at that time, got all the news that was unfolding at the centre. He was informed of mutinous gatherings outside and instigating speeches. Mr Narayanan’s network was so live wire that he was the first to learn that the commandant had been killed.
One thing was very clear: the rebelling recruits had nothing against the ordinary citizen. They just spoke of going to Punjab and of their religion being in danger. Between Ramgarh and Varanasi they looted several petrol pumps for fuel, and in nearby Kuju ransacked a small hotel. Says its owner Trilochan Sharma: “Around 40 youngsters trooped inside my hotel and began plundering the food. When I protested, one of them pointed his rifle at me. The workers ran away and I had to beg them to spare my life. However, barring stray incidents the only thing those recruits wanted was to reach Punjab as early as possible.”
Though people were against Operation Blue Star, they had no sympathy for the mutineers either. And the people of Ramgarh made it plain that they condemned the rebellion.
The news of the soldiers’ operation at the Golden Temple
in Amritsar came to us regularly, but from unconfirmed sources. At the time of Operation Blue Star the broadcast and print media were much less active than they now are. For the most part people depended on the BBC or the AIR, or waited for the next day’s newspapers from Ranchi and Patna. Rampur’s former member of the legislative assembly, Yamuna Sharma, still remembers the day – June 7, 1984 – when it had looked like all was finished.Ranjit Mishra, who was just 20 years old at the time, recalls the unnerving calm that pervaded the Sikh Regimental Centre. It was around 7:30 A.M. of June 7 that the people of Ramgarh heard of the soldiers’ mutiny. They were rebelling against Operation Bluestar. People had begun collecting outside the regimental centre on the national highway, stood on the roof of houses nearby, and even on tree tops to catch a glimpse of the goings on inside its premises. Some 400 to 500 armed youth had made it till the highway, hopped into which ever vehicle passed their way and started moving towards Hazaribagh. It was only then that people realised that they were all rebellious recruits.
Numbering some 1,500, they had broken into the armoury and killed the centre’s commandant, Brigadier S. C. Suri, after they were stopped. Pramod Aggarwal, a businessman, was on the crowded highway when the recruits came, and he remembers how within minutes it was deserted by the general public. For, though they harmed nobody in Rampur city the recruits’ approach was excessively aggressive. All were armed and firing blindly. Clearly, they were ready to kill and get killed. Since television had not yet arrived, news of successive developments was slow to travel. Recalls Yamuna Sharma: “Mr Narayanan of the Intelligence Bureau, who was posted in Ramgarh at that time, got all the news that was unfolding at the centre. He was informed of mutinous gatherings outside and instigating speeches. Mr Narayanan’s network was so live wire that he was the first to learn that the commandant had been killed.
One thing was very clear: the rebelling recruits had nothing against the ordinary citizen. They just spoke of going to Punjab and of their religion being in danger. Between Ramgarh and Varanasi they looted several petrol pumps for fuel, and in nearby Kuju ransacked a small hotel. Says its owner Trilochan Sharma: “Around 40 youngsters trooped inside my hotel and began plundering the food. When I protested, one of them pointed his rifle at me. The workers ran away and I had to beg them to spare my life. However, barring stray incidents the only thing those recruits wanted was to reach Punjab as early as possible.”
Though people were against Operation Blue Star, they had no sympathy for the mutineers either. And the people of Ramgarh made it plain that they condemned the rebellion.
