A former Indian Army general, who led the 1984 raid on Sikhism's holiest shrine in the northern town of Amritsar, survived an "assassination attempt" in London on Sunday night, local media reported on Tuesday.

The 78-year-old, Lieutenant General Kuldeep Singh Brar, was stabbed in the neck by four men with beards, suspected to be Sikh extremists, as he came out of a hotel after having dinner with his wife on Sunday night, according to the media reports.

The general, who sustained serious but not life-threatening injuries and was released from hospital on Monday, termed the attack as an "assassination attempt" and claimed that one of his attackers even tried to slit his throat.

"Four bearded, tough-looking men wearing black jackets and black clothes pounced on me. One of them pushed my wife to the side; she fell down and started screaming for help. Three of them charged at me; one pulled out a dagger or a knife and tried to assassinate me. This was a pure assassination attempt on me," he told a television channel.

Lt General Brar added: "On 6th of June, which is the anniversary of Blue Star every year, particularly in London, the radical Sikhs come out in procession with banners and make pledges to kill me. So it was a pure assassination attempt."

According to London police, Lt General Brar, himself a Skih, was attacked on Old Quebec Street in the Oxford Circus area. A police statement said the four men "are described as wearing dark clothing and long black jackets. They all had long beards." There have been no arrests in the case.

He is entitled to Z-category security -- very high security accorded to high risk individuals -- in India but not abroad.

In fact, the former general has been the target of extremist Sikhs since 1984 when he led troops which flushed Sikh separatist militants, fighting for an independent homeland of Khalistan, out of the Golden Temple in Amritsar in the northern state of Punjab.

The operation, code named "Operation Bluestar", left 400 people, including 87 soldiers, dead. Months later, India's first woman Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in what was perceived as a revenge attack.

The assassination, in turn, triggered Sikh riots in the Indian capital in which over 3,000 Sikhs were killed.