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The army used excessive force. Eyewitnesses say that the army deployed tanks, armed personnel carriers,rocket launchers, heavy machine guns and helicopters.Many of the buildings surrounding the Temple were reduced to rubble. It was a military operation using indiscriminate force against a non-military target and as such was in breach of Article 51 of the 1977 Protocol to the Geneva Convention. In the Punjab as a whole,about 150,000 to 200,000 soldiers were used to flush out “terrorists ”.

There were several reports of barbaric acts by the army. The Guardian on 13/6/84 reported the following:
“A Sikh doctor drafted from the Government hospital to Jullunder to conduct post mortem examinations said that he had seen the bodies of two Sikhs who had been shot at point blank range, their hands tied behind their backs with their turbans.His colleagues had reported others, some of whom had been machine-gunned. This doctor headed a team that conducted 400 examinations. He said that most bodies were riddled with bullets and bore bomb wounds. He said,“It was a virtual massacre. A large number of women, children and pilgrims were gunned down.”

The same doctor told journalists that bodies of victims were brought to the mortuary by police in municipal refuse lorries.(The Times of 13/6/84 and the Indian Express of18/6/84) reported that of the 400 bodies,100 were women and between 15-20 were children under five. One was a two month-old baby. The doctor said that one “extremist ”in the pile of bodies was found to be alive;a soldier shot and killed him.

A local journalist stated that he saw a dozen Sikh Youths, arrested inside the temple,made to pull their trousers above their knees, kneel and march on the hot road whilst the soldiers repeat This press report was made by Brahma Chellaney of the Associate Press. He was then accused by the authorities of falsely reporting certain facts about the army raid on the Harminder Sahib and inflaming sectarian passions. Criminal charges were laid against him. Brahma Chellaney reacted by challenging the constitutional validity of the censorship and anti terrorist laws hurriedly imposed in Punjab.

Dead bodies were carried away in refuse lorries. The curfew gave no opportunity for the families to come to the morgues and identify their dead. The authorities were in flagrant breech of Article 17 of the Geneva Convention of 1949,which provides that the dead shall be honourably interred.

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