THE smoke screen resulting from the fire at the Sikh Reference Library, Amritsar, refuses to clear up even after 19 years. The repository of over 1,500 invaluable rare manuscripts, including copies of the Adi Granth, Damdami Bir (dated Bikrami 1739) and various portraits and manuscripts, the library was destroyed during the 1984 Operation Bluestar.

Even after a lapse of nearly two decades, what exactly happed to the Sikh Reference Library is not clear. Conflicting statements of Defence Minister George Fernandes have not helped clear the confusion.

Ranjit Singh Nanda, a retired CBI inspector, had made a startling disclosure that the rare manuscripts, Hukmnamas, books and invaluable material of the Sikh Reference Library was taken in gunnybags and big trunks to an unknown place after Operation Bluestar. This had already started a controversy. Although President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, during his recent visit to the Golden Temple, had assured the SGPC chief that he would take up the issue with the department concerned, yet the Shiromani Committee is unlikely to get back its 'treasure-house'.
While the Army authorities maintain that the library had caught fire during exchange of fire with the militants who had taken shelter on the premises of the Golden Temple, the SGPC says that the Army deliberately put the 'empty library' on fire after taking the rare and invaluable material away.

The Sikh reference library, besides containing rare historical books, documents, manuscripts on Sikh religion, history and culture, also had a number of handwritten manuscripts of the Guru Granth Sahib and Hukmnamas, some bearing signatures of revered Sikh Gurus, and a few rare documents pertaining to India's struggle for Independence.