Bela Singh

Bela Singh was an informant for the immigration inspector William Hopkinson in Vancouver, and the man who on 5 September 1914 fired into a funeral gathering at the Vancouver Sikh temple. The Dictionary of Canadian Biography calls him "one of Hopkinson's informants" and says that on that day he entered the temple and fired two revolvers into a gathering of thirty-five or forty men, who had met for the funeral of a Sikh shot two days earlier. He wounded eight or nine, two of them fatally, Bhag Singh and another man. The Sikh Heritage Museum of Canada says he wounded nine and killed two other Sikhs, among them Bhag Singh, the granthi of the temple.

The trial: Wikipedia, used here for the trial because the other sources opened do not describe it, says Bela Singh called the police and was arrested, was charged with murder, and claimed he had fired in self-defence. It says his plan depended on testimony from Hopkinson about threats against him, and that after Hopkinson was shot on 21 October 1914 his trial was postponed. The sources opened do not say how the case ended.

Mewa Singh and Hopkinson: Mewa Singh, who had witnessed the attack, shot Hopkinson dead at the Vancouver courthouse on 21 October 1914, before a grand jury hearing in Bela Singh's case, and said that Bela Singh's desecration of the temple decided him to do it (Dictionary of Canadian Biography). The Sikh Heritage Museum says Hopkinson was due in court that day to testify in Bela Singh's favour. Mewa Singh was hanged at New Westminster on 11 January 1915.

Key moments

• 5 September 1914: the shooting at the Vancouver Sikh temple.
• 21 October 1914: Mewa Singh shoots Hopkinson dead at the courthouse.
• 11 January 1915: Mewa Singh is hanged at New Westminster.

What he is remembered for: in the history of the Sikhs of Canada, for the attack on worshippers at the temple, which Mewa Singh gave as the reason he killed Hopkinson.