Maninderjeet Singh Bitta

Maninderjeet Singh Bitta, also written Maninder Singh Bitta and known as M.S. Bitta, is a politician and an outspoken critic of the Khalistan movement. According to Wikipedia, P. V. Narasimha Rao appointed him president of the Indian Youth Congress, and he served as a minister in the Punjab government under Beant Singh. By 2014 a news report described him as a former Congress leader. The Tribune describes him in 2025 as chairman of the “All-India Anti-Terrorist Front”.

Key moments

• 9 May 1992: a car bomb in Amritsar killed 13 people. Bitta and his friend Charanjit Singh Bedi were badly injured.
• 11 September 1993: a remote-controlled car bomb exploded outside the Indian Youth Congress offices on Raisina Road, New Delhi, as Bitta left his office. He survived with shrapnel wounds to the chest. Nine people died, two of them his bodyguards, and between 31 and 36 were wounded; accounts differ on the figures.
• Authorities named Devinderpal Singh Bhullar as responsible. A TADA court sentenced him to death on 25 August 2001, and in 2002 the sentence was upheld by a 2 to 1 split in which the presiding judge would have acquitted him. His confession, which he said was obtained under torture, was withdrawn. On 31 March 2014 the Supreme Court commuted the sentence to life for unexplained delay and mental illness.
• 31 March 2014: hours after the commutation, Bitta said he was disappointed and criticised Congress president Sonia Gandhi (IBTimes).
• 24 October 2025: Bitta wrote to Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta and Tihar jail authorities opposing Bhullar's permanent release. He called it a “grave threat to national security” and, in The Tribune's account, warned that Bhullar could retaliate against him and revive networks abroad. Those are his own claims.

What he is remembered for. As a politician who survived two bomb attacks and became one of the best known public opponents of the Khalistan movement. His name is tied to the Bhullar case, in which the 2014 commutation turned on unexplained delay in deciding the mercy petition.