August 1922[EoS]
Babbar Akali movement
Two secret bands in the Doaba merge as the Babbar Akali Jatha, a group that rejects the non-violence of the main Akali movement and targets British officers and those it regards as informers. It is suppressed by 1924.
The name, also spelled Babur, means lion. The group grew out of anger at the killings at Tarn Taran and Nankana Sahib. Master Mota Singh and a retired havildar major, Kishan Singh Gargajj, led a group of radicals who met secretly at Hoshiarpur in March 1921. Those sent to kill officials they held responsible were arrested that May. Kishan Singh formed the Chakravarti Jatha that November, and the bands joined under the Babbar name in late August 1922.
The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says its strength hardly exceeded 200, with a wider circle of helpers. Members were bound to recite gurbani and to avoid personal vendettas. Its main activity ran from the middle of 1922 through 1923, and several officials and supporters of the government were killed.
The government declared the Jatha unlawful in April 1923 and sent troops and special police into the area. Of 91 accused sent for trial at Lahore, 34 were acquitted, 49 were imprisoned and six received death sentences, carried out on 27 February 1926. They included Kishan Singh Gargajj.
Descriptions differ. Government treated the group as criminal conspirators, one Encyclopaedia entry calls it a terrorist group, and another stresses its members' Sikh faith and patriotism. The main Akali campaign kept to peaceful methods.[EoS][EoS]