AMRITSAR, Nov 19: Rahul Gandhi, the scion of India's ruling dynasty, has sought to heal a rift with the Sikh community over the bloody events surrounding the assassination of his grandmother Indira Gandhi.

During a visit on Tuesday to Amritsar, Gandhi, who is a general secretary of the ruling Congress Party, acknowledged the “tragedy” of the 1984 army assault on Sikhdom's holiest shrine in the city.

The assault, ordered by then prime minister Indira Gandhi on Sikhs holed up in the Golden Temple, left scores dead, hundreds wounded and resulted in substantial damage to the shrine complex.

In retribution, Indira Gandhi was shot dead in October of the same year by two Sikh bodyguards — an act that in turn triggered anti-Sikh riots that claimed thousands of lives.

The riots “were absolutely wrong,” Rahul Gandhi said, adding that the perpetrators “should be brought to justice.” “Neither I nor my family have no ill-feeling towards any community,” he said.

His remarks were significant given the charges at the time that Congress leaders had goaded Hindu mobs into attacking Sikhs.

His father Rajiv Gandhi, who succeeded Indira as prime minister, had been criticised for rationalising the violence with the quote: “When a big tree falls, the earth shakes.” According to official figures, some 2,700 people were butchered in the anti-Sikh riots, most of them in the capital New Delhi.

With general elections due by May next year, the Congress Party, led by Rahul's mother Sonia Gandhi, hopes to mend fences with Sikhs, who comprise two per cent of India's 1.1 billion population. “Operation Blue Star was the worst tragedy for Punjab,” Rahul said on Tuesday of the military attack on the Golden Temple. But not all Sikhs responded favourably to what was seen by the media as a gesture of atonement.

Punjab's most powerful female religious leader, Bibi Jagir Kaur, said Sikhs would not pardon the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty or the Congress party.

“They do not deserve to be forgiven because in our eyes they are guilty of the carnage of Sikhs and the sacrilege of the Golden Temple,” said Kaur, former president of the trust that manages the temple's affairs.

“This dynasty is a murderer of Sikhs and the community will never accept it as the ruler of the country,” she said on Wednesday.

The Punjab is presently governed by the Sikh regional Akali Dal party, which is aligned to India's main opposition Hindu nationalist BJP party.—AFP