Golden Temple's Chief Granthi Grants Historic Permission for Cannon Deployment Against Pakistani Drones

The Indian Army's air defence chief has said that the chief granthi of the Golden Temple in Amritsar has given unprecedented permission for the deployment of air defence systems within the sacred complex to counter potential missile and drone attacks from Pakistan.

Lt Gen Sumer Ivan D'Cunha said in an interview to news agency ANI, "It was great that the chief granthi of the Golden Temple allowed us to deploy our guns. This is probably the first time in many years that he switched off the lights of the Golden Temple so that we could see the drones coming."

The Army Air Defence Director General officer further said that the Golden Temple authorities "once it was explained to them they realised that there was a potential threat. They allowed us to deploy the guns to protect and guard a national war memorial of international repute, which is visited by hundreds of thousands of people every day. As a result, the guns were deployed and the lights of the Golden Temple were switched off." Citing an earlier statement by Major General Karthik C Seshadri, General Officer Commanding (GoC) of the 15th Infantry Division, in which he had revealed that Army air defence gunners had successfully intercepted all drones and missiles targeted at the Golden Temple, D'Cunha said the Indian Army had anticipated that Pakistan could target religious sites near the border due to the absence of legitimate military targets.

"Fortunately, we imagined 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 therefore, we imagined that they would target our civilian population and our religious places of worship," the Army officer said.

Giving details of the Indian Army's operations at the Golden Temple, Major General Seshadri confirmed that all attacks on the Sikh shrine were successfully thwarted.

The Major said, “The Pakistani Army has no legitimate targets to attack inside India, nor does it have the courage or capability to confront the Indian Armed Forces face-to-face. Therefore, it uses terrorism as a state policy and resorts to launching unmanned aerial weapons from its soil. They have also targeted religious places, especially on the Indian border, an example of this is the Golden Temple in Amritsar, which saw a rise in drone and missile attacks, which were bravely thwarted by our Army air defence gunners.”