BANTĀ SIṄGH (1890-1915), a Ghadr revolutionary, was born the son of Būṭā Siṅgh in 1890 at Saṅgvāl, 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 pañchāyat 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 Kapūrthalā to seize firearms. Two groups were organized to attack the guard posted at the Vallā bridge, near Mānāṅvālā railway station in Amritsar district, one of which was to be led by Bantā Siṅgh. 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, Bantā Siṅgh's close relative, Partāp Siṅgh of the village of Jauṛā in Hoshiārpur 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 Vallā railway bridge case, and was sentenced to death. He was hanged on 12 August 1915.