According to the Indian Army’s Air Defence Chief, the Head Granthi of the Golden Temple in Amritsar gave a unique permit for the installation of air defence systems inside the hallowed grounds in order to thwart Pakistani drone and missile assaults. In reaction to India’s Operation Sindoor, which was initiated in reprisal for the terrorist assaults in Pahalgam on April 22, Pakistani drones and rockets repeatedly targeted Amritsar.
“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,” Lieutenant General Sumer Ivan D’Cunha said in an interview with news agency.
The officer, Director General of Army Air Defence, further noted that the Golden Temple authorities “realised there was a potential threat once it was explained to them. They allowed us to deploy guns to secure and protect a national war monument of international repute, which is visited by hundreds of thousands of people every day. As a result, the guns were deployed, and the Golden Temple’s lights were switched off.”
“The Indian Army had expected Pakistan to target religious sites near the border, given the lack of legitimate military targets,” D’Cunha said, citing a previous statement by Major Genral Kartik C. Seshadri, General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the 15th Infantry Division, who said that Army Air Defence gunners had successfully intercepted all drones and missiles aimed at the Golden Temple.
“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.
All attacks on the Sikh shrine were successfully repelled, according to Major General Seshadri, who also provided an account of the Indian Army’s activities in the Golden Temple.
“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.
Following India’s strikes on terror sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the April 22 terrorist attack in Pahalgam, India and Pakistan have engaged in increased military activity. Pakistan retaliated by launching about 1,000 drones at Indian civilian targets, all of which were shot down by Indian air defence systems. India also seriously damaged Pakistani air bases and killed a large number of Pakistan Army soldiers.
