Lt Gen K S Brar and the government’s White Paper presents a list of recovered arms. As per this list, there were:
7.62 mm Light Machine Guns 41
7.62 mm Self-Loading Rifles 84
7.62 mm Chinese Rifles 52
Assorted Rifles, all types 28
Carbines 41
5.56 mm Sub Machine Guns 49
Pistols & revolvers (standard pattern) 84
Pistols (country made) 67
l2-bore guns 78
Rocket-propelled grenade launchers (anti-tank) 2
Persons taken into custody were categorised in four groups: elderly, women, young and the “dangerous” group - identifiable by blue or saffron turban, ceremonial dagger, flowing beard, or generally unhappy looks.
No women constables were assigned to look after the women prisoners; as with the men, their captors were the soldiers. As might be expected, there were rumours of large scale molestation and rape. Few Punjabi women would be willing to admit to having been raped so it may never be possible to verify these rumours. The rumours themselves were extremely disturbing.
To a contrary charge by the army that captive women and narcotics were found in the temple P.S. Bhinder, then Director General of Punjab police, rebutted the charge in the Probe magazine of July 1984: “I haven’t met any women who has complained to me. Wasn’t it the army who said that Hashish and Heroin were discovered? And now the report is being denied.”
In an essay contributed to ‘The Punjab Story”, Lieutenant General J.S. Arora writes: “There is a need to correct the picture that has been painted by the media that sophisticated weapons were found inside the Temple. The first thing to remember is that in a war weapons get lost! In both the wars with Pakistan, in 1965 and 1971, a large number of weapons were picked up by people and never accounted for. With the large scale smuggling going on across the Punjab-Pakistan border, some gun-running must have taken place. Since 1960, the government has been issuing arms to certain reliable people living close to the border for security purposes. So there have been a lot of unaccounted weapons in circulation in Punjab, used often in family feuds, property disputes and dacoity. Their buying and selling has been a lucrative trade. Another point to note is that of the weapons seized inside the Temple, only 60 self-loading rifles bear foreign markings. All the rest are of Indian origin. Further there were no medium machine guns or mortars. There were however a large number of light machine guns. Ammunition for both the light and medium machine guns is the same, but a medium machine gun has a higher and more sustained rate of fire. There were two rocket launchers with the terrorists but only one was used. It is obvious therefore that there were not many sophisticated weapons. Quite a lot, yes, but the impression that has been built up in the public mind of foreign governments deliberately arming the terrorists with a view to overthrowing the government is grossly overdone.”
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Out of 526 weapons , only 60 self-loading rifles were of foreign origin.
