Towards the end of last week the Sikh Federation (UK), the National Council of Gurdwaras and associated Sikh organisations faxed Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the Pope's deputy in the Vatican, saying the Pope and the one billion Roman Catholics were in their prayers. Following the Pope's death a second fax was sent offering condolences from the British Sikh community. The first faxed letter from Bhai Amrik Singh, Chair of the Sikh Federation (UK) and Daljit Singh Shergill, of the National Council of Gurdwaras said: "We are deeply saddened to learn Pope John Paul II has received the last rites, our thoughts and prayers are with the Pope and Roman Catholics throughout the world". Mention was also made of the Pope's vocal support of the Sikh community over the last 20 or so years for which the Sikhs were grateful. In June 1984, referring to the Indian army assault on the Golden Temple Complex, the Pope expressed his "great sadness" of an attack on a place of worship and the "tragic death" of so many innocent pilgrims. Later the same year he expressed the "universal horror and dismay" with the anti-Sikh pogroms in November 1984. More recently the Pope had been very supportive of the "inalienable right" of Sikhs in France to practice and propagate their faith and said "no government should interfere with the inner core of any religion." A Federation spokesman speaking to the BBC about the Pope's life contrasted his reaction and that of one billion Roman Catholics after he was shot and seriously wounded in 1981 by Mehmet Ali Agca, a Turkish fanatic; and the anti-Sikh pogroms that took the lives of over 20,000 innocent Sikhs in November 1984 after Indira Gandhi was killed by two of her Sikh bodyguards.