06/06/2026
Continuing on from the night of the 5th June, moving into the early hours of the 6th June, the battle increased in ferocity. According to General K.S. Brar, on June 6, around 4-30 a.m., thirty soldiers managed to get into the Akal Takhat, the ‘Immortal Throne’ which represents the highest seat of Sikh spiritual and political sovereignty. The fighting in the early hours of the morning of the 6th was ferocious, and eyewitnesses including soldiers and General K.S. Brar, testify that although desperately outnumbered the Sikh Fighters fought bravely and “to the last man.”
The army ordered their tanks to fire upon the Akaal Takhat and due to the repeated explosions, the Akaal Takhat was reduced to rubble and the Sikh fighters inside died defending it.
The testimony of one of the pilgrims, explains why the fighters fought so desperately;
“Bhai Amrik Singh (leading Sikh fighter) sent her a message urging her to leave the Temple Complex at once with her group in order to escape being dishonoured [r***d] or being shot dead as ‘terrorists’ by the Army personnel, and also to survive to tell the true story of what happened inside the Golden Temple to the world outside.”
She recalls the scenes that she saw when she stepped out of the room, where she and others were trying to survive the firing and bombing; “what did I see but piles of dead bodies, all stacked one over the other. At first I instinctively felt that I wouldn’t manage to go out. All I could see was a ceaseless mound of dead bodies. It seemed that all the persons who were staying in the Parikrama, not one of them had survived.”
