How DIG A S Atwal was shot dead outside Golden Temple in 1983

Varinderjit Singh, an 11-year-old boy, and Amritsar resident Kulwinder Singh were also injured in the attack and taken to a hospital. While Varinderjit succumbed to his injury, Kulwinder was seriously injured.

P C Sethi, then Union home minister, said in Parliament Atwal was shot dead just outside the main entrance of Darbar Sahib towards Chowk Ghanta Ghar. “He was reportedly fired upon by one unidentified Sikh young man while he was coming outside from Darbar Sahib after paying homage to Sri Guru Granth Sahib. The assailant had reportedly come from inside the Darbar Sahib complex with a rifle and reportedly ran back to the Darbar Sahib after committing the crime,” Sethi informed Parliament.

Sethi said information that the Government have been receiving from time to time regarding wanted criminals, including Dal Khalsa activists, taking shelter in places of worship was confirmed by the dastardly crime near the entrance of the Darbar Sahib.

“All senior superintendents of police in Punjab have been alerted and the director general of police has rushed to the spot. The request of State authorities to SGPC to hand over the accused person has not been heeded so far. The Government has decided to entrust the investigation of this case to the CBI. Director, CBI, is proceeding to Punjab,” the minister added.

DIG Atwal was shot dead with several witnesses — including his bodyguards and some policemen stationed a short distance away — to the crime close by. His bodyguards reportedly ran away from the spot as did the police contingent.

In his account of the shooting of A S Atwal, K P S Gill, former Punjab DGP, says, “The shopkeepers pulled down their shutters, and no one dared to approach the body. The killers danced the bhangra around the felled DIG, and then sauntered back into the Temple. Atwal’s body, riddled with bullets, lay in the main entrance to the Sikh’s most sacred shrine for more than two hours before the District Commissioner could persuade the Temple authorities to hand it over.”

In the account available on the South Asian Terrorism Portal (SATP), Gill adds it was actions like these that provided the greatest fillip to violence, and to the acceptance of violence as a legitimate political weapon.

“I was subsequently put in charge of the inquiry into the Atwal killing. I discovered that, at that point of time, there were over a hundred policemen in the vicinity and more than half of them were equipped with firearms. Among the officers whom I examined, each one was at pains to explain that he was not at the spot when the killers struck. I wondered how a police force noted for its gallantry, its fighting spirit and the adequacy of its responses in situations of violence was brought to such a point,” writes Gill.