Harsimran Singh of the Dal Khalsa

Harsimran Singh was one of the six Sikh activists who formed the Dal Khalsa. In Gurmit Singh's History of Sikh Struggles he is its "Chief" when members of the Dal Khalsa hijacked an Indian Airlines plane to Lahore in September 1981. The Dal Khalsa's spokesperson Kanwarpal Singh told The World Sikh News that Harsimran Singh was one of six men who formed the organisation on 6 August 1978, with Gajinder Singh, Satnam Singh Paonta Sahib, Tejinder Singh, Jaswant Singh Thekedar and Manmohan Singh Khalsa. The spokesperson also said the Dal Khalsa was announced formally at Chandigarh on 13 August 1978.

Key moments

• 6 August 1978: the Dal Khalsa is formed (Kanwarpal Singh).
• 29 September 1981: five Dal Khalsa members hijack an Indian Airlines plane to Lahore. Gurmit Singh says that immediately afterwards Harsimran Singh, "Chief of the Dal Khalsa", took responsibility for the hijacking at a press conference at Amritsar. He demanded the unconditional release of Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and all Dal Khalsa men in jail, and a judicial enquiry into the police action at Chowk Mehta.
• After the press conference: he went underground. The volume says he was arrested "after a long time at Mohali" (p. 61).
• January 1982: a later page of the same volume says he was arrested by the police in January 1982, from the house of Harinder Pal Singh, the driver of a minister in the Congress (I) government (p. 68).

What he is remembered for: as a founder of the Dal Khalsa, and as the man who spoke for it in Amritsar after the 1981 hijacking. The sources opened say nothing of his later life.