Golden Temple head granthi earns praise for allowing Indian Army to deploy air defence guns within shrine

STC NEWS MONITORING DESK
NEW DELHI, MAY 20 (STC):
During “Operation Sindoor”, the management of the Golden Temple in Amritsar allowed the Indian Army to deploy air defence guns within the shrine to counter potential drone and missile threats from Pakistan.
This was revealed by the Director General, Army Air Defence, Lt General Sumer Ivan D’Cunha, in an interview with news agency ANI on Monday.
Lt General D’Cunha informed that the Golden Temple’s lights were switched off for the first time in history to facilitate better detection and engagement of the drones coming from Pakistan. According to him, as reported by the ANI, it helped the Indian defence forces spot and engage enemy drones more clearly.
“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 Sumer Ivan D’Cunha said in the interview.
The Lieutenant General D’Cunha gave the credit for the army getting to deploy air defence guns in the Golden Temple premises to the head granthi (head priest) of the holiest shrine for the Sikhs around the world.
“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,” he said in the ANI interview.
The Director General said the unprecedented cooperation from the Golden Temple authorities came after they were briefed on the gravity of the threat, following which Indian Army guns were deployed.
“The Golden Temple hierarchy realised there was possibly a threat when it was explained to them. They allowed us to deploy guns to secure and protect the monument of international fame, which is visited by hundreds and thousands of people every day. Hence, these guns were deployed, and the golden temple lights were switched off so that we could clearly visualise the drones as they were coming in. That gave us a greater clarity in the sky because as and when you saw the light, you knew what to engage,” the top army officer said.
(STC)