Bhai Avtar Singh Brahma

Bhai Avtar Singh Brahma was one of the best-known Kharku commanders of the 1980s and a jathedar (chief) of the Khalistan Liberation Force (KLF). The 1984 Tribute site, a Sikh tribute site whose account is partisan, says he was born in 1951 in Brahmpura, near Tarn Taran, the youngest of four brothers, and left school after the fifth class to work the family farm. In 1966, it says, he took Amrit and joined Baba Daya Singh's Bidhi Chand Dal, the Nihang jatha, where he was known for gatka and horsemanship.

Sources differ on how the KLF began. The Quint says it was founded in 1986 by Aroor Singh and Sukhwinder Singh Babbar. Sikh Siyasat News says Brahma set it up in 1986. The 1984 Tribute account does not call him a founder: it says he was made jathedar after Aroor Singh was captured and killed by police. The accounts agree that he led the KLF from about 1987 and that Gurjant Singh Budhsinghwala took over from him.

Key moments

• 30 May 1984: the 1984 Tribute page says he and a companion left their jatha for Sri Darbar Sahib, and that Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale told them to go back to their villages and wait. Operation Blue Star began days later.
• 27 December 1986: the same page describes a broadcast from the gurdwara at Brahmpura challenging the CRPF, followed by reprisals against villagers.
• 15 January 1987: UPI reported that gunmen shot dead Lt Col Sant Singh Bhullar, an Army officer who had taken part in the June 1984 action, at his home near Amritsar, and left a note claiming the killing in the name of Avtar Singh Brahma's group.
• 22 July 1988: he was killed near the Pakistan border in Rajasthan. The 1984 Tribute page says a Border Security Force party surrounded him and two companions, that he held the force off in a field while the others escaped, and that he was shot in the stomach. Wikipedia's article on the KLF says Punjab Police killed him and notes that one source calls the circumstances mysterious. Who killed him is therefore not settled.

What he is remembered for. The 1984 Tribute page calls him a "Sikh Robin Hood" and says the police called him the "King of the Mand". Wikipedia's KLF article also describes him as a "Robin Hood figure" who stayed respected until the end. He died ten days after General Labh Singh of the Khalistan Commando Force (12 July 1988, per the same site), and the two losses are remembered together as a heavy blow to the Kharku struggle.