All India | Edited by Prasad Sanyal | Updated: January 13, 2014

Did UK help Indira Gandhi plan Operation Bluestar, asks Labour MP

File photo: Indira Gandhi

New Delhi A law-maker from the Labour party  claims that he has seen documents that suggest Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s administration helped Indira Gandhi plan the storming of the Golden Temple in 1984, in which security forces entered the holy site to flush out militants.

Tom Watson, MP for West Bromwich East, told the BBC Asian network channel, that he has seen “top secret papers from Mrs Thatcher authorizing SAS (Special Air Services) to collude with the Indian government.”

He said the government appears to have “held back” some documents and must disclose more information. “This trying to hide what we did…not coming clean…would be a very great error,” he said.  (See full report on BBC)

“The documents seem to indicate Ms Thatcher knew about the sensitivity of this issue,” Mr Watson told NDTV.

“I am writing to the Foreign Secretary about this matter and will raise it in the House of Commons. I expect a full explanation,” the MP said on his website.

More than 1,000 people were killed in Operation Bluestar, the raid on Sikhism’s holiest shrine. Five months later, in retaliation, Mrs Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards.