Banta Singh, a Ghadr revolutionary, was born the son of Buta Singh in 1890 at Sangval, in Jalandhar district of the Punjab. On completing his school education, he moved to US for further studies. In 1914, he returned home from America fired with revolutionary fervour. He established a school and a panchayat 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 Kapurthala to seize firearms. Two groups were organized to attack the guard posted at the Valla bridge, near Mananvala railway station in Amritsar district, one of which was to be led by Banta Singh. He attacked the guard on the night of 1112 June 1915 and captured six service rifles and 200 cartridges.
The government announced a prizeof two squares of land and two thousand rupees in cash for anyone catching him. Lured by this, Banta Singh`s close relative, Partap Singh of the village of Jaura in Hoshiarpur 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 Valla railway bridge case, and sentenced to death in 1915.