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Was born the son
of Buta Singh in 1890 at Sangval, in Jalandhar district of the Punjab.
He passed his matriculation examination from the local D.A.V. High
School and left for abroad, first travelling to China and then onwards
to America.
In 1914, he returned home from America fired with revolutionary
fervour. He established a school and a panclhayat in his village
and undertook a tour of the district distributing Ghadr literature
among the people and exhorting them to join in the rising to expel
the British
from India and engage in sabotage, tampering with railway lines
and cutting telephone wires.
As he once went to Lahore to procure firearms, he was detected by
two policemen who tried to catch him, but he escaped. He attended
a meeting of a Ghadr group on 2 May 1915 when it was planned to
attack the magazine at Kapurthala to seize firearms.
Two groups were organized to attack the guard posted at the Valla
bridge, near Mananvali railway station in Amritsar district, one
of which was to be led by Banta Singh. He attacked the guard on
the night of 11-12 June 1915 and captured six service rifles and
200 cartridges.
The government announced a prize of two squares of land and two-thousand
rupees in cash for anyone catching him. Lured by this, Banta Singh's
close relative, Partap Singh of the village of Jaura in Hoshiarpur
district, had him arrested on 25 June 1915.
He was tried in the Central Jail, Lahore, under martial law along
with four others in the Valla railway bridge case, and was sentenced
to death. He was hanged on 12 August 1915.
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