Avtar Singh Brahma killed; Labh Singh killed

Who: General Labh Singh (Bhai Sukhdev Singh) of Panjwar village in Amritsar district, a former Punjab Police man who led the Khalistan Commando Force (KCF), and Bhai Avtar Singh Brahma (born about 1951) of Brahmpura village near Tarn Taran, a Nihang Singh who led the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF). The 1984 Tribute account of Labh Singh says he left the police after the Nirankari killings of Vaisakhi 1978, joined Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale's following, and was held at Jodhpur after the Army action of June 1984.

What: Two of the best-known field commanders of the Kharku Sangharsh were lost within ten days in July 1988.

• 12 July 1988: Labh Singh was killed. The 1984 Tribute account says a police snatch squad arrested him and he died under torture. Notices announced bhog ceremonies at Tanda on 18 July and in Panjwar on 21 July. One notice was signed by Avtar Singh Brahma and Sukhdev Singh Babbar.
• 22 July 1988: Brahma was killed near the Pakistan border in Rajasthan. The same site says that he and two companions were trying to cross when the Border Security Force surrounded them. He held the force off in a field while the others escaped, and was shot in the stomach. The police at first could not confirm who he was, and his identity was settled only when a captured associate was shown photographs.

Where: Punjab, for Labh Singh and his funeral rites, and the Rajasthan border belt for Brahma.

Why it mattered: The 1984 Tribute pages, a Sikh tribute site, rank both men in the front rank of the struggle and record that Brahma was a folk hero in Punjab, so the loss to the movement was large. Their groups went on under others. The Tribune reported in 2001 that Kanwaljit Singh Sultanwind took over the KCF for a brief period after Labh Singh, and that Paramjit Singh Panjwar led it after Sultanwind was killed in a police "encounter". Kanwarpal Singh of Dal Khalsa wrote in 2018 that Gurjant Singh Budhsinghwala succeeded Brahma at the KLF, was killed in July 1992 in Ludhiana, and that after Dr Pritam Singh Sekhon's death in mid-1995 the group went dormant.

How the two men died is told here from Sikh sources only. No police or court account of either death has yet been found to set beside them.