May 20, 2025 07:51 PM IST
Lieutenant General D’Cunha, in an interview, had said the head granthi allowed air defence guns at the Golden Temple during Operation Sindoor.
The Indian Army on Monday dismissed media reports claiming the deployment of air defence (AD) guns at the Golden Temple, saying that no AD guns or related resources were deployed within the premises of Sri Darbar Sahib in Amritsar.
Earlier, in an interview with the news agency ANI, Lieutenant General D’Cunha credited the head granthi, the chief priest of the holiest Sikh shrine worldwide, for enabling the army to deploy air defence guns within the Golden Temple premises.
He claimed that, for the first time in history, the Golden Temple’s lights were switched off to enhance the detection and engagement of drones coming from Pakistan.
“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,” Lt General D’Cunha said in the interview.
“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,” D’Cunha added in the interview.
Head granthi denies claim of air defence guns at Golden Temple
However, on Tuesday, Golden Temple head granthi (priest) Giani Raghbir Singh refuted the statement made by Lieutenant General Sumer Ivan D’Cunha, the army’s air defence in-charge, who claimed he had authorised the deployment of air defence guns within the shrine complex to counter potential drone and missile threats from Pakistan during Operation Sindoor.
Calling the statements “propaganda,” Giani Raghbir Singh said, “I was not contacted by any army officer. There was no communication on any gun deployment, nor did any such incident occur at Sri Darbar Sahib. I was on leave in the US for 22 days. I went on April 24 and returned on May 14. The conflict started after I left and ended before I returned. The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee should probe the army’s claims and take departmental action if any SGPC member is found involved in this matter.”
