Bhai Amrik Singh

Bhai Amrik Singh was the president of the All India Sikh Students Federation (AISSF) and a leading member of the Damdami Taksal in the years before June 1984. He was the son of Sant Giani Kartar Singh Khalsa Bhindranwale, the thirteenth head of the Taksal, and worked alongside Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.

According to the Damdami Taksal's own account of his life, he was born in 1948, took an MA in Punjabi at Khalsa College, Amritsar, and began research for a PhD. The Taksal says he was elected president of the Sikh Students Federation on 2 July 1977. Another account dates his election to 2 July 1978, when the Federation was reorganised after the killing of 13 Sikhs at the Nirankari convention in Amritsar that April.

Key moments

• 19 July 1982: police arrest him. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism names him as president of the AISSF and son of the late Sant Kartar Singh Khalsa. Bhai Thara Singh, a senior Taksal member, was arrested the next day.
• 20 to 25 July 1982: judging Mehta Chowk no longer safe, Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale moved on 20 July to Guru Nanak Nivas in the Darbar Sahib complex, and on 25 July called a Panthic convention and announced a morcha for the release of his men. From 4 August 1982 the Akali Dal moved its Dharam Yudh agitation to Amritsar, and Bhindranwale merged his morcha with it.
• 6 June 1984: he was killed in Operation Blue Star. The Damdami Taksal's account says he fell at the foot of the two Nishan Sahibs near Sri Akal Takht Sahib.

What he is remembered for. His arrest in July 1982 is the event the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism gives for Bhindranwale's move into the Darbar Sahib complex and for the morcha that merged into the Dharam Yudh Morcha. The Damdami Taksal counts him among the first of the hundreds of Sikhs who died defending Sri Harmandir Sahib and Sri Akal Takht Sahib in June 1984.