Former Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi wrote a personal letter to her British counterpart Margaret Thatcher soon after the 1984 Operation Bluestar in an attempt to justify her decision to send army to flush out militants from the Golden Temple, the holiest Sikh shrine.

The letter, dated June 14, 1984, was made public for the first time today as part of a British government inquiry into the role played by the UK in the lead up to the Indian Army operation on Golden Temple in Amritsar to remove militants.

"It is never easy to undertake security action involving a place of worship... But this place, so sacred to the people of the Sikh faith, had been converted by terrorists into a base of operations," wrote Gandhi just days after the operation that left more than 1,000 people dead.

"We did know that arms were being collected there. But only after last week's action did we realise how vast and sophisticated these weapons were... For months a reign of terror was unleashed from the temple complex, holding all Punjab to ransom. We had no choice but to send an army unit which exercised the utmost restraint, using a minimum of force," she added.

The former Indian prime minister also shared her regrets over the fallout of the military action with Thatcher, one of her close political allies.


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