Chandigarh: Narain Singh Chaura, a 68-year-old former militant, was arrested outside the Golden Temple Wednesday after he attempted to assassinate Sukhbir Singh Badal. The former deputy chief minister and president of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) was on guard duty outside the temple gate as part of a punishment issued by the Akal Takht the previous day. Chaura, who was active during the Punjab militancy in the 1980s and 1990s, is the founder of militant group Khalistan Liberation Army and convener of a now defunct radical think tank Akal Federation, according to an interview he gave to a YouTube channel.
Chaura is part of a 21-member committee formed by militant Jagtar Singh Hawara in 2019. The committee focuses on Sikh issues, particularly advocating for ‘Bandi Singhs’, the Sikh prisoners who were arrested for crimes during the militancy era and have already served their mandatory jail sentences. Hawara, currently imprisoned in Tihar Jail in Delhi, is serving his conviction for the assassination of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh.
A resident of Chaura Bajwa village in Dera Baba Nanak, Gurdaspur, Chaura is a former pracharak (religious preacher) of the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC). He was radicalised in his student days in the Sikh Missionary College Amritsar in the late 1970s.
Chaura founded the Akal Federation, a group of hard liners in 1982 in Amritsar while serving the SGPC and living inside the Golden Temple complex. He was on SGPC duty at Pathankot when Operation Blue Star took place in June 1984.
Following Operation Blue Star, he went underground and managed to cross over to Pakistan the same year. According to the Punjab Police, he was trained in Pakistan and went on to form the Khalistan Liberation Army, activists of which have been involved in carrying out militant operations. While in Pakistan, he authored a book on guerrilla warfare, police sources told ThePrint. He has also authored a book on Operation Blue Star.
According to the police, Chaura returned to India briefly in 1986 and again crossed over to Pakistan. In 1989, he came back to operate in India under assumed names—Shamsher Singh alias Shera, Chamkaur Singh and Kapoor Singh Jamraudh.
Punjab Police say Chaura and his men were instrumental in smuggling weapons and explosives into Punjab. Almost two dozen cases were registered against him for his alleged involvement in militant activities. However, he has been acquitted or discharged in the majority of these cases.
After he went underground in 1984, Chaura was first arrested in 1995 from Amritsar and was released in 1997 from jail. Chaura went underground immediately after his release, before he could be arrested in other cases.
Burail jailbreak, UAPA case
In 2004, Narain Singh Chaura was arrested for his involvement in the infamous Burail jailbreak in Chandigarh. The police had then claimed that Chaura, a regular visitor to the jail played a key role in helping five inmates, including the assassins of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh—Jagtar Singh Hawara, Jagtar Singh Tara, and Paramjit Singh Beora—escape through an underground tunnel. Hawara and Beora are currently leading the Babbar Khalsa International, a militant outfit.
The police had also claimed that Chaura was also in touch with the human bomb Manjit Singh Fauji who had killed Beant Singh.
Chaura was released on bail in the case in 2005 and was acquitted in the case in 2015.
In 2013, Narain Singh Chaura was arrested by the Amritsar police and charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA). He was implicated in smuggling 2 kg of RDX, which was found in a Maruti car parked near the Amritsar railway station in 2010. The police alleged that Chaura had procured arms and explosives from Pakistan in December 2009 and January 2010, distributing them to terrorist modules operating in Punjab.
Chaura was released on bail in 2018 in this case and has been living in Chaura Bajwa since. He has also participated in several Sikh events in the past few years.
He has recently authored another book countering the views presented by G.B.S. Sidhu—a former special secretary of India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (R&AW)—in his 2022 book The Khalistan Conspiracy. Chaura’s latest, “Khalistan Viruddh Sajish”, which aims to present an alternative perspective, is yet to be released.
In the interview to YouTube channel Punjab News Scoop on his life journey in September this year, Chaura said that he was deeply moved by the death of 13 Sikhs in 1978 in Amritsar during an armed conflict between Sikhs and Nirankaris. He said that event marked the beginning of the period of the Sikh struggle in Punjab. “I was doing a Kathavaachak diploma in the Sikh missionary College when the incident happened in Amritsar and I attended the cremation of the 13 Sikhs who died. That left a deep impact on me,” said Chaura.
The interview was replugged by the channel Wednesday.
In the interview, Chaura said that his family had moved from Multan in Pakistan following partition and settled in Chaura Bajwa, where they got a piece of agricultural land. He completed his early schooling from a nearby village and at Dera Baba Nanak. After finishing his diploma at the Shahid Sikh Missionary College in Amritsar, Chaura graduated from Guru Nanak College in Gurdaspur He later pursued two Master’s degrees—one in political science and the other in Punjabi—from Punjabi University, Patiala. Additionally, he completed a course to become a Giani (religious preacher) at Panjab University, Chandigarh.
In his interview he held that the SAD government, in power in 1978, did not stand up for the cause of the Sikhs when 13 Sikhs were killed by Nirankaris.
Chaura said that he had founded the ‘Akal Federation’ in 1982 along with four other persons including Kanwarpal Singh Dhami. “The Federation was created on Guru Nanak Dev Ji’s birth anniversary and it was dedicated towards strengthening the age-old traditions of the Akal Takht. But we could not do too much work as in 1984 I had to go underground,” said Chaura.
Chaura said that he was on duty in Pathankot when Operation Blue Star started in the Golden temple complex in June 1984. “I somehow managed to reach my village where a few days later the army came to arrest me, but I managed to escape,” said Chaura
“I remained underground till 1995, when I was first arrested by the Amritsar Police. However I managed to get released in 1997. I remained underground and first created the ‘Dusht Daman Brigade’, but when our operations became bigger I created the Khalistan Liberation Army, of which I am the chief. We even tried to get help from foreign nations,” said Chaura in the interview.
Chaura went on to relate that he was arrested in 2004 by the Chandigarh Police for the Burail jailbreak case but was bailed out in 15 months and finally acquitted in 2015.
“While on bail in the jail break case, I was arrested in 2013 in another case and released on bail in 2018 after 5 years of incarceration,” said Chaura.
He added that currently only a single case is pending against him. “The police have not presented the challan (charge sheet) in the case in the court, pending which I am on bail,” said Chaura.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)
Also read: What Sukhbir Singh Badal’s ‘submission’ before Akal Takht means for future of Akali Dal & his family
Chaura is a terrorist. Must be eliminated. Why is the BJP govt going soft on actual terrorists?
There is no point in eliminating Khalistani terrorists in Canada when people like Chaura are roaming free in India.
The SGPC must be banned. It is a threat to the sovereignty and integrity of the nation.
Individuals like Chaura must be tried for treason. Stringent laws like NSA and UAPA were crafted precisely for such people.
Unfortunately, the BJP govt has been misusing these acts against it’s political opponents.
If Punjab Police cannot deal with the likes of Chaura, they they can hand these terrorists over to UP Police. Yogi’s police knows how to deal with criminals and terrorists.