In July 1982, Harchand Singh Longowal, the president of the Sikh political party Shiromani Akali Dal, invited Bhindranwale, who was wanted by authorities, to take up residence in the Golden Temple to evade arrest.

Hoping to avoid damage to the holy site, Indian forces unsuccessfully assaulted the temple using light weaponry and quickly resorted to using heavy weapons, including tanks, helicopters and artillery to dislodge the well-fortified Sikh militants.

Activist Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale then joined the Akali Dal, and launched the Dharam Yudh Morcha movement in 1982, in a bid to urge the Indian government to implement the Anandpur Sahib Resolution.

[48] The resolution declared its goals within the context of remaining within the federal union of India, and leaving the powers of foreign relations, defence, currency, and general communications subject to the jurisdiction of the Indian central government.

In the early 1980s, one of the main aims of Soviet KGB active measures with regards to India was to manufacture evidence that the CIA and Pakistani intelligence were behind the growth of Sikh separatism in Punjab.

[51] In 1981, the Soviets launched Operation Kontakt, which was centered around a forged document purporting to contain details of the weapons and money provided by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to Sikh militants who wanted to create an independent country.

[51] According to agent reports, the level of anxiety in the Indian embassy in Islamabad regarding Pakistani support for Sikh separatists indicated that Operation Kontakt was successfully achieving its goals of creating an alarmist effect.

[51] In November 1982, Yuri Andropov, the leader of the Soviet Union, approved a proposal to fabricate Pakistani intelligence documents detailing ISI plans to foment religious disturbances in Punjab and promote the creation of Khalistan as an independent Sikh state.

[53] In 2005, Christopher Andrew concluded that the KGB was ultimately responsible for Indira Gandhi and others in the central government exaggerating the threats posed by the Sikh militants, Pakistan, and the CIA.

According to anthropologist Cynthia Keppley Mahmood, Kashmiri fighters were present in the Golden Temple complex in 1984; both the Punjab and Kashmir insurgencies shared links with the Pakistan secret service whose aegis provided arms and training.

Sensing a prospect of his arrest from the hostel premises, he convinced SGPC president Tohra to set up his headquarter in Akal Takht (a shrine representing the temporal power of God) in the Golden Temple.

[62]: 131  The temple high priest protested this move as a sacrilege since no Guru or leader ever resided in the Akal Takht on the floor above Granth Sahib, but Tohra agreed to Bhindranwale's demand to prevent his arrest.

[62]: 131  The government said Bhindranwale and his followers had made the Golden Temple complex an armoury[67] and headquarters,[66][verification needed] though amassing arms and usage as a base for waging war was part of the tradition of most historical gurdwaras, which display weapons caches used by the Gurus, depicting the centrality of Sikh sites to their struggles.

[citation needed] The militants were able to claim safe haven in the Golden Temple due to the whole or partial support received by them from key Sikh religious leaders and institutions such as the SGPC, AISSF and Jathedar (head) of the Akal Takht.

[68] In January 1984, India's secret service Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) prepared a covert plan codenamed Operation Sundown involving special forces to abduct Bhindranwale from the Golden Temple complex.

The Indian government White Paper alleged that after Operation Blue Star it was found that the militants had set up a grenade manufacturing facility, and a workshop for the fabrication of Sten guns inside the Temple Complex.

The defences in the complex were created with the purpose of stalling an assault, giving time to provoke Sikhs in the villages and encourage them to march en masse towards the Golden Temple in support of the militants.

[62]: 148  Congress member of parliament Amarjit Kaur, who referred to the Akali Dal as "the enemy within" and who had opposed the creation of the Punjabi Suba, alleged that Bhindranwale wanted to start a civil war between Hindus and Sikhs.

After destroying the outer defences laid by Shabeg Singh, the army moved tanks and armoured personnel carrier (APCs) onto the road separating the Guru Nanak Niwas building.

[101] Another eyewitness, Bhan Singh the Secretary of the SGPC, states that the army provided no warning of the start of the attack which prevented pilgrims and those who came as a part of the Dharam Yudh Morcha from exiting.

[110] A female survivor of the assault stated that the army asked people to leave their hiding spots and guaranteed safe passage and water; she recalled seeing the dead bodies of pilgrims who answered the announcements lying in the Parikrama the next morning.

[122] Delivering the findings of a review in 2014, U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague attributed high civilian casualties to the Indian Government's attempt at a full frontal assault on the militants, diverging from the recommendations provided by the U.K.

[129] On 2 May 1986 the paramilitary police undertook a 12-hour operation to take control of Harmandir Sahib at Amritsar from several hundred militants, but almost all the major radical leaders managed to escape.

Based on "some sort of information", Bhindranwale was planning to declare Khalistan an independent country any moment with "a strong possibility" of support from Pakistan, and "Khalistani currency had already been distributed".

[153] The White Paper further alleged that to prevent the surrender, the militants opened fire and threw grenades at the group resulting in the deaths of 70 people, including 30 women and 5 children.

[157] In reaction to the dispatch, the Indian government charged Chellaney with violating Punjab press censorship, two counts of fanning sectarian hatred and trouble, and later with sedition,[158] calling his report baseless and disputing his casualty figures.

In an age where a handful of Israeli or German commandos could, through a well-planned action overcome a well-entrenched enemy thousands of miles away from them, the best our generals could do was to storm the Temple complex with tanks and armoured cars, blast the Akal Takht to get at Bhindranwale and 200 of his men.

In crossfire upwards of 5,000 people, a majority of them pilgrims, including women and children, lost their lives.... Far from doing a competent job, our army commanders botched up a simple operation.

[23] The date being chosen for its surprise factor, or the presence of pilgrims potentially preventing the militants from responding, showed "cynical disregard" for innocent lives, with "neither good soldiering nor honourable combat" on the part of the senior generals in charge of planning the operation.

[2]: 153–154 The soldiers and generals involved in the Operation were presented with gallantry awards, honours, decoration strips and promotions by the Indian president Zail Singh, a Sikh, in a ceremony conducted on 10 July 1985.