The Death of Mahal Singh Babbar: End of a fugitive militant sheltered by ISI in Pakistan....by KBS Sidhu

Mahal Singh Babbar’s death was not the loss of a leader, but the ignominious and unsung end of a fugitive militant sheltered by a hostile state and long complicit in cross-border terror.

The death of Mahal Singh Babbar on March 24, 2025, in a private hospital in Nankana Sahib, Pakistan, brings an inglorious end to a militant’s long run from justice. Once a Deputy Chief of the banned Khalistani terrorist outfit Babbar Khalsa International (BKI), Mahal Singh’s life was not a tale of sacrifice or struggle for rights—it was a fugitive existence defined by violence, manipulation, and loyalty to a foreign intelligence agency hostile to India. Sheltered for decades by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), he spent his last years in enforced irrelevance under ISI surveillance, his utility exhausted.

His story is not one of martyrdom, but of moral and political failure—a reminder of what happens when grievance is converted into terror, and nationalism is outsourced to those who seek India’s destruction.

Final Years in Pakistan: A Spent Asset

By the time of his death, Mahal Singh was a faded shadow of his former self. Confined to Gurdwara Tambu Sahib in Nankana Sahib under strict ISI monitoring, his movements were restricted, his activities curtailed. What had once been a “strategic asset” in Pakistan’s proxy war against India was now a liability—ailing, outdated, and barely tolerated.

His kidney ailment saw him moved to Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in Lahore, a facility for Pakistan Army personnel, underscoring his embeddedness in the ISI ecosystem.

His cremation on March 26 attracted almost no attention—even among the so-called Khalistan sympathisers abroad—highlighting just how little remained of the myth and aura that once surrounded him.

From Soldier to Terror Facilitator

Mahal Singh’s early years in the Indian Air Force could have laid the foundation for a life of service. Instead, he chose the path of treachery. Influenced by his elder brother Sukhdev Singh Babbar, co-founder of BKI, Mahal Singh crossed over to the anti-India terrorist underground in the early 1980s. But while Sukhdev Babbar was a frontline militant, Mahal Singh carved his role as a handler, arms trafficker, and planner, enabling violence from behind the scenes.

He was declared a proclaimed offender by 1990. Fleeing India, he first sought refuge in France, only to re-emerge in Pakistan under ISI protection when extradition efforts intensified.

There, he became a key player in sustaining Khalistani terror networks, liaising with gangsters and radicals like Harwinder Singh Rinda, and coordinating drone-based arms drops and encrypted cross-border communication. His focus was not ideology—it was operational sabotage.

The 1992 Death of Sukhdev Singh Babbar: Staged Encounter?

The fall of Sukhdev Singh Babbar, his elder brother, in August 1992 had marked a turning point in the BKI’s trajectory. Official records claimed he was killed in an armed encounter near Ludhiana. However, testimonies and subsequent investigations by various Human Rights Organisations pointed to something far different.

According to various sources, Sukhdev Babbar had been captured alive from his Patiala hideout on August 8, tortured in police custody, and later killed in a staged encounter on August 9.

The officer who took credit for the “operation” was Sidharth Chattopadhyaya, then Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Ludhiana. A controversial figure throughout his career, Chattopadhyaya capitalized on the elimination of Sukhdev Babbar to boost his professional credentials.

The encounter, riddled with inconsistencies—such as the alleged discovery of a personal diary no fugitive would carry—was widely perceived as fake, but no accountability followed.

Years later, Sidharth Chattopadhyaya rose to become Punjab’s Director General of Police (DGP), despite longstanding allegations of custodial torture, fake encounters, and heavy-handed policing during his earlier field postings.

His promotion was widely questioned within police circles and civil society alike. Even after his retirement in January 2022, Chattopadhyaya remained embroiled in legal troubles—facing proceedings in an abetment to suicide case in Amritsar, linked to a Sikh businessman who took his own life under suspicious circumstances.

Moreover, his brief and turbulent tenure as DGP under the Charanjit Singh Channi government was marked by a serious breach of national security: the failure to ensure the free and safe passage of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s convoy from Bathinda to Hussainiwala in Ferozepur.

The convoy was left stranded on a flyover for nearly 20 minutes on January 5, 2022, triggering national outrage and an inquiry into the lapses. That episode, emblematic of both administrative paralysis and political friction, effectively ended any residual credibility associated with Chattopadhyaya’s career.And he wasn’t alone.

Another senior police officer whose rise was marked by similar controversy was Sumedh Singh Saini. Widely accused of being responsible for the torture, disappearance, and extrajudicial killings of hundreds of Sikh youth during the height of Punjab’s militancy, Saini's name became synonymous with repression.

Yet, in a politically cynical move, Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Singh Badal—in a bid to consolidate hardline support and retain power—appointed him as Punjab’s DGP in 2012, superseding a host of more senior and meritorious IPS officers from the 1975 batch onwards.

This act of political endorsement not only insulted institutional meritocracy but also sent a chilling message about the normalization of impunity. It laid bare the uncomfortable truth: that political power in Punjab was often built on the bones of a gory past, where justice and due process of law seemed optional and expediency ruled.

The ISI’s Weapon: Mahal Singh and the Proxy War Playbook

Pakistan’s ISI didn’t back Mahal Singh out of ideological alignment—it backed him because he was useful. His decades-long presence in Pakistan fits into a well-documented ISI blueprint:

1. Alienate: Fuel Sikh alienation by weaponizing grievances from 1984 and the Anandpur Sahib Resolution.
2. Radicalize: Train militants in camps across Kot Lakhpat, Gujranwala, and Peshawar.
3. Destabilize: Use groups like BKI to execute terror attacks—be it the assassination of Beant Singh in 1995 or recent drone drops in Punjab.

Mahal Singh served this blueprint faithfully. But with time, newer faces emerged—savvier, younger, and more attuned to the digital battlefield. The ISI shelved him like expired equipment, even as he remained a fugitive from Indian justice, living and dying in a country that harbored him solely as a weapon against India.

The Path Not Taken: Constitution Over Conflict

Mahal Singh Babbar’s entire life was a case study in ignoring the available, peaceful alternatives. India’s democratic framework provides constitutional remedies to every citizen, including dissenters. 

Article 32 ensures the right to move the Supreme Court for enforcement of fundamental rights. Punjab's political autonomy was even acknowledged in the now-defunct Rajiv-Longowal Accord of 1985.

Dialogues with armed groups in Nagaland, Mizoram, and Andhra Pradesh show that political integration is not only possible but preferable.Instead, Mahal Singh chose the bullet over the ballot, ISI propaganda over Indian democracy, and foreign asylum over legal accountability.

He made no effort to reform, surrender, or reconcile. He remained committed to the violent dismantling of a democratic nation—until he was discarded by his foreign patrons.

Conclusion: Not a Martyr, Just Another Militant Lost to Time

Mahal Singh Babbar’s death in Pakistan is not the loss of a leader—it is the inglorious expiry of a vestige from a dark chapter in Punjab’s recent history. He was not a voice of his people. He was a handler of weapons, a conspirator of cross-border terror, and a lifelong fugitive living under the protection of a nation that bleeds India by a thousand cuts.

His end was not one of dignity but of disease, isolation, and irrelevance.As Punjab reclaims its peace and its people move on from the shadows of militancy, Mahal Singh’s story is a warning—not an inspiration.

It reminds us that violence fueled by foreign conspiracies leads only to dead ends. And it reaffirms the ultimate truth of modern India: that justice, however delayed, lies within the framework of the Constitution—not outside it, and never across the border.

March 29, 2025