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Summary Ex-Indian army chief who led 1984 operation against Sikhs has been stabbed in a London street.
The Indian military chief who led the contentious 1984 operation against Sikh fighters in the Golden Temple in Amritsar has been stabbed in a London street, the Indian embassy said Monday.Retired lieutenant general Kuldip Singh Brar, 78, was attacked by four people late Sunday during a private visit to the British capital, a spokeswoman for the Indian High Commission in London told AFP.An ambulance was sent to the scene and he was taken to hospital where he was treated for his injuries. Police are investigating the case.Brar commanded Operation Blue Star, ordered by then-prime minister Indira Gandhi to flush out militants holed up in Sikhdoms holiest shrine demanding an independent Sikh homeland.He was attacked by four people at 10:40pm (2140 GMT Sunday) in central London. The identity of the four people is not known. We have no information about the culprits yet, the high commission spokeswoman told AFP.We were informed by the British police.He was coming out from after dinner. We were told by his wife -- both of them were there -- that there were four people. She was not harmed. He was stabbed.He was injured and hes out of danger now. He is weak but he has been discharged from hospital.He was on a private visit and we did not know he was visiting. Most probably he will leave on Tuesday back to India.A spokesman for Londons Metropolitan Police told AFP they were called at 11:20 pm Sunday to reports of a man assaulted in Old Quebec Street, which is at the western end of central Londons main Oxford Street shopping thoroughfare, close to Hyde Park and the Marble Arch landmark.Our officers and the London Ambulance Service (LAS) attended and discovered a man aged in his 70s suffering an injury believed to have been caused by a knife, the spokesman said.He was taken to hospital where his injuries were described as serious but not life-threatening. He has since been discharged.It is being investigated by Westminster Borough police. There have been no arrests and the investigation is ongoing.An LAS spokeswoman told AFP: We were called at 10:40 pm to Old Quebec Street to reports of an assault. We sent one ambulance to the scene and our staff treated a man reported to be 78 years old and he was taken to hospital.Four months after Operation Blue Star, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh bodyguards in retaliation.That triggered anti-Sikh riots in which thousands of people were killed, most of them in the streets of the Indian capital New Delhi.
