Bimal Kaur

Bibi Bimal Kaur Khalsa was born to Sardar Gurbachan Singh into Ramdasia Sikh family at Delhi, India. She married Beant Singh on 23 January 1976 at a local gurdwara.^[1]

Bibi Bimal Kaur was a nurse at Lady Hardinge Medical College when her husband assassinated Indira Gandhi.^[1] Immediately after the assassination she was apprehended by the Indian security forces, she disappeared for several days, leaving her children Amrit, Sarabjeet and Jassi at home. She was detained, interrogated, and most likely tortured for two weeks.^[2] The Damdami Taksal paid for her children's education for two years. Bibi Bimal Kaur stayed in Delhi until 1985 when she and the family moved to Punjab with the assistance of the Damdami Taksal.^[3] From there she worked with Sikh Student Federations and began to call out the injustices of the government, the false encounter issues.

Her father-in-law, Beant Singh's father Sucha Singh Maloa, was also elected as a member of parliament.^[4] Sarbjeet Singh, her son, was nominated by the SAD (A) headed by Simranjit Singh Mann to run for parliament from the Bathinda and Mansa in 2004.^[5] In 2024, Sarabjeet Singh won from Faridkot by a margin of more than 70 thousand votes.^[6]

She contested from two Vidhan Sabha seats in the 1985 Punjab Legislative Assembly election, Chamkaur Sahib and Pakka Kalan as an Independent candidate.^[7] She finished second in both the constituencies.^[8][9]

On April 30, 1986, then Chief Minister Surjit Singh Barnala ordered troops into Darbar Sahib again to flush out the Kharkus who were residing in the gurudwara complex.^[10] On June 4, 1986, she went to Darbar Sahib with 3,500 members, to mark the anniversary of the Operation Blue Star and to speak on the atrocities of the government.^[11] at this time Surjit Barnala essentially had his guards throughout the Gurudwara complex to ensure stop the Khalistan movement. She delivered an incendiary speech.^[12] The crowd cheered for Khalistan and openly threatened to kill Surjit Singh Barnala.^[13] In a confrontation with his men and Sikh protesters, a guard was killed.^[14][15]

After her speech, she was arrested, charged for murder, and served 2 years in jail.^[3] In 1989 she campaigned for Lok Sabha from Ropar, and she won a seat with a ticket from Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar).^[16] She now had further leverage, and political strength, both of which made her a more serious threat to the government.^[17]

Bimal Kaur died on 2 September 1991.^[18][19] The police said she died from electrocution from her washing machine. Some reports that reached the press indicated that Bimal Khalsa consumed cyanide. Both these reasons are disputed by her relatives. They said that she was picked up by police and poisoned with cyanide which they claimed was a common tactic against kharkus around that time. They demanded a post-mortem which, under normal circumstances, the police was bound to conduct on request but the police refused this.^[20]