Bhindranwale Tiger Force of Khalistan (BTFK)

The Bhindranwale Tiger Force of Khalistan (BTFK) was a Kharku jathebandi that fought for Khalistan in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It took the name of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, and its founder and head was Baba Gurbachan Singh Manochahal. Its strength was around Tarn Taran. Sources date its start differently: 1987 (Wikipedia’s lead, citing Jugdep Chima’s study of the insurgency), 1984 (Wikipedia, citing Cynthia Mahmood), and the period after the Panthic Committee was named on 26 January 1986 (Panthic.org).

Its leaders, in order

• Baba Gurbachan Singh Manochahal, head from the start to his death in late February 1993. The Panthic Committee also named him Jathedar of Sri Akal Takht Sahib, on dates the sources give differently; his own page sets them out.
• Sukhwinder Singh Sangha, his lieutenant and day-to-day commander, who left in February 1990 with most of the fighters and led a rival faction until he was killed at Bhullar village on 3 November 1990 after a five-hour encounter.
• After Manochahal’s death UPI reported that Balwinder Singh was named the new chief; police killed him in a gun battle near Amritsar on 30 March 1993.

Its part in this history

Manochahal was one of the five members of the Panthic Committee named by the Sarbat Khalsa of 26 January 1986. The events below are as reported by UPI and Wikipedia.

Key moments

• 26 January 1986: Manochahal named to the first Panthic Committee.
• 13 June 1987: gunmen fired submachine guns in four neighbourhoods of New Delhi and killed 12 people. UPI reported that a caller claimed the attacks in the BTFK’s name as revenge for the November 1984 killings of Sikhs.
• February 1990: Sangha breaks away and forms his own faction.
• 3 November 1990: Sangha is killed at Bhullar.
• 24 November 1990: a bomb in Tarn Taran kills Superintendent of Police Harjit Singh and three bodyguards. He had led the Bhullar operation. UPI reported that police blamed the Bhindranwale Tiger Force and said it had threatened him the month before, for his alleged part in killing some of its members. Wikipedia says the BTFK acted with other groups of the Sohan Singh Committee, in revenge for Sangha, and calls it a remote-controlled bomb; UPI called it a land mine. No claim of responsibility is reported in these sources.
• Late February 1993: Manochahal is killed at Rataul in Tarn Taran district; sources give 28 February or 1 March. Wikipedia reports that the Punjab Police chief KPS Gill said, “Now I can say that we have finished militancy in Punjab.”

Where it stands today

After Manochahal’s death, Wikipedia says, the BTFK seems to have disbanded or splintered into factions. The Rataul operation is told in its own entry.