Sundar Singh, Bhai
One of the Jaito Martyrs (1898-1924)

Was born the son of Bhai Mansa Singh and Mai Raj Kaur of Karamgarh Satrarn village, 20 km west of Bathinda. After attending school for two years at the village of Kot Bhai, he shifted over to a Gurmukhi school where he practised the reading of the Guru Granth Sahib. He received the rites of the Khalsa at the age of 12 and stayed for a few years at Amritsar further to study the Sikh texts.

He enlisted during World War I in the transport wing of the army, and served in the Peshawar-Landi Kotal region of the NorthWest Frontier Province for a few years. Sundar Singh resigned soon after the Nankana Sahib occurrence and turned an Akali activist. He was named secretary of the Bathinda tahsil Akali Jatha. Shortly before the tragedy at Jaito, he had injured his knee in a fall from his horse, but he insisted on going to watch the progress of the first Shahidi Jatha, and assisted by his elder brother Indar Singh and jathedar Kheta Singh, met the Jatha at its last halt at Bargari.

He was limping along a flank of the front lines of the Jatha during its march towards Jaito on 21 February 1924 when on its approach near Gurdwara Tibbi Sahib, the Nabha state forces opened fire on the advancing multitude. Bhai Sundar Singh was hit in the neck and killed on the spot.

Source: Encyclopaedia of Sikhism, Harbans Singh