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Radical Sikh groups want Vatican status for Golden Temple
Hardline Sikh groups are learnt to have put forward two “preliminary steps” and three main issues for the dialogue.
Radical Sikh groups in other countries, engaged in secret talks with the government, put forward three main demands, including an apology at a global forum for the 1984 military operation in the Golden Temple and a special status for the Akal Takht and Harmandar Sahib on the lines of the Vatican, according to two people familiar with the developments.
One of them, who was familiar with the process to reach out to Sikh groups since its inception, said contact was initially established with UK-based Sikh groups through London-based interlocutor Jasdev Singh Rai, director of the Sikh Human Rights Forum, shortly before Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited London in November 2015 and formal talks began after Rai and some 30 Sikh leaders met Modi during the visit.