kattipatang: From the UK National Sikh Youth Federation:Refusal to Provide Aid to Wounded Pilgrims:M
kattipatang: From the UK National Sikh Youth Federation:Refusal to Provide Aid to Wounded Pilgrims:Many accounts of Operation Bluestar, including the SGPC’s White Paper on the Punjab Problem, relate that the Red Cross was refused permission to enter the Temple complex and the wounded were left to suffer for days. Many people died of dehydration as they were refused water.Bhan Singh told the members of the Citizens For Democracy team: “They [the Army] treated the inmates of the complex as enemies and whenever there was any person wounded on account of the firing, no Red Cross people were allowed to enter, rather the Red Cross personnel had been detained beyond Jallianwalla Bagh” more than a kilometre away from the main entrance to the Golden Temple from the Chowk Ghanta Ghar side.The CFD report, ‘Oppression in Punjab’ remarks: In accordance with the UN Charter of Human Rights, the Red Cross is permitted to go in aid of the wounded right inside the enemy territory, but in Amritsar in June, 1984, the Red Cross was not allowed to enter the Golden Temple - a respected and hallowed part of our country - in aid of Indians under attack from the Indian Army. It only means that the attack was so brutal and the battle scene so grisly, that there was much to hide from public scrutiny, even if it be that of a neutral agency called the Red Cross. This also explains perhaps why Press censorship had already been imposed, the last of the journalists were hounded away and the Press was not allowed to go inside the Golden Temple up to June 10, when they were taken on a guided tour of the complex for the first time since the Army operation began almost a week before.The Christian Science Monitor reported on the 8th June 1984:“On Saturday, medical workers in Amritsar said soldiers had threatened to shoot them if they gave food or water to Sikh pilgrims wounded in the attack and lying in the hospital" -- source link