Babbar Khalsa founded after the Nirankari clash

Who: The group that took the name Babbar Khalsa, which grew out of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha. Accounts name Bibi Amarjit Kaur, the widow of Bhai Fauja Singh, who took over the Jatha after his death; Sukhdev Singh Babbar; and Talwinder Singh Parmar, later its leader abroad.

What: On Vaisakhi, 13 April 1978, Sikhs of the Akhand Kirtani Jatha and the Damdami Taksal marched on a Sant Nirankari convention in Amritsar. Nirankari guards fired on them: the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says 13 Sikhs were killed on the spot and 78 wounded. Fauja Singh was among the dead. On 4 January 1980 a sessions judge at Karnal set free all 64 Nirankari accused, including their chief, Baba Gurbachan Singh. Babbar Khalsa came out of that anger. Wikipedia says it was created in 1978 by Sukhdev Singh Babbar after the clash, formed with Bibi Amarjit Kaur's support and with Talwinder Singh as president. ThePrint calls it an offshoot of the Jatha. The Tribune reports villagers saying that on the day of the clash Sukhdev Singh Babbar took a pledge of revenge against the Nirankari mission.

Sources do not agree on one founding date. EBSCO says the group was formed in the late 1970s in one place and in Canada in 1981 in another, and Wikipedia says it split in 1981 into a Punjab wing under Sukhdev Singh Babbar and a wing abroad under Parmar. The name recalls the Babbar Akali movement of the 1920s.

Where: Punjab, with Amritsar at the centre of the events of 1978, and later Canada.

Why it mattered: Two organisations are tied to the Vaisakhi killings of 1978. ThePrint says the clash led to the founding of Dal Khalsa in August 1978, and Babbar Khalsa is reported to have sought revenge. EBSCO says a Babbar Khalsa International member claimed responsibility for the 1995 killing of Chief Minister Beant Singh, that Sukhdev Singh Babbar and Parmar were both killed in 1992, and that the UK banned the group in 2001 and the US listed it as a "terrorist" organisation in 2004.