Bhai Soora Singh

Bhai Soora Singh, also written Sura Singh, is remembered as one of the Singhs who gathered at Bhai Tara Singh Van's fortified dwelling at Van, near Amritsar, and died with him when a Lahore army came against them. Very little is known of him. The sources opened give no birth, village or family for him.

The fullest account is Rattan Singh Bhangu's Prachin Panth Prakash, as retold on the Sikh site Gurmat Bibek. It lists the Singhs who came from across Punjab to join Tara Singh, among them Soora Singh, "who did wood work" and decided to join Tara Singh and be a Shaheed. Another published account, on the Panth Punjab newsletter, calls Bhai Sura Singh an early ancestor of Shaheed Jaswant Singh Khalra who attained shaheedi alongside Bhai Tara Singh Van. That descent is that page's statement; no second source was found for it.

Key moments

• 1720s or early 1730s: after Bhai Tara Singh Van's party defeats a small force from Patti, Singhs from across Punjab come to stand with him. Soora Singh is among them.
• The night before the last fight: Momin Khan, sent by Zakariya Khan, reaches Van with a force said to number 2,200 horse. The 22 or so Singhs hold the bunga through the night.
• At sunrise most of the Singhs have fallen and the rest charge the army. Bhai Tara Singh Van is shot from a distance and attains shaheedi.

The date of the stand is disputed. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism gives 24 December 1732 for Tara Singh Van's last battle, while Wikipedia and Gurmat Bibek point to about 1726.

He is remembered in the Panth as one of the Singhs of Van, and by those who trace the Khalra family's line of Shaheedi back to that day.