Assassination of Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India, was shot at approximately 9:20–9:30 a.m. on 31 October 1984 while walking through the garden of her residence at No. 1 Safdarjung Road, New Delhi, on her way to a filmed interview with Peter Ustinov. She was accompanied by her personal secretary R. K. Dhawan, personal security officer Rameshwar Dayal, and Constable Narayan Singh, and was not wearing the bulletproof vest she had been advised to wear following Operation Blue Star. As she passed a wicket gate, two of her bodyguards, Sub-Inspector Beant Singh and Constable Satwant Singh, opened fire. Beant Singh reportedly said, "I have done what I had to do. You do what you want to do." Within minutes, Border Police officers killed Beant Singh; Satwant Singh was arrested and seriously wounded, along with an accomplice attempting to escape.

Gandhi was taken to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at 9:30 a.m. and declared dead at 2:20 p.m. The assassination followed Operation Blue Star, a military action ordered by Gandhi and carried out between 1 and 8 June 1984 to remove Sikh separatist leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his followers from the Golden Temple complex in Amritsar. The operation resulted in significant civilian and militant deaths and damage to the Akal Takht and the Sikh Reference Library, and heightened perceived threats to Gandhi's safety; Sikh bodyguards, including Beant Singh, had briefly been removed from her security detail before being reinstated at her insistence.

Satwant Singh was tried and convicted of Gandhi's killing and sentenced to death, along with co-conspirator Kehar Singh. Both were executed by hanging on 6 January 1989. The Justice Thakkar Commission of Inquiry, established to investigate the assassination, recommended a separate probe into a possible conspiracy and stated that suspicion regarding complicity pointed toward R. K. Dhawan, though he was not charged.

Gandhi's assassination was followed by the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, four days of mob violence instigated by nationalist mobs and political figures associated with the Indian National Congress, which destroyed 40 historic gurdwaras and other Sikh sites. Official government figures put the death toll at 3,350, while other estimates range from 8,000 to over 25,000 Sikhs killed. Gandhi's body lay in state at Teen Murti Bhavan and was cremated with full state honours on 3 November 1984 near Raj Ghat, with her son and successor Rajiv Gandhi lighting the pyre. India observed national mourning from 1 to 12 November 1984, and several other countries declared periods of mourning.