Kartar Singh Sarabha Ji was born at Sarabha in Ludhiana district in 1896. He went to the United States in 1912 to study at Berkeley and was drawn into the Ghadar Party at San Francisco within a year. He edited the Gurmukhi edition of the paper Ghadar and set its type himself.
In 1914, when the party called on Punjabis abroad to return and rise, he came back. The plan was a mutiny in the Punjab garrisons set for 21 February 1915. It was betrayed by Kirpal Singh, an informer inside the organisation, and the date was moved and then collapsed.
He was arrested, tried in the first Lahore Conspiracy Case, and hanged at Lahore Central Jail on 16 November 1915. He was nineteen. The judgment recorded that he was the most dangerous of the accused and showed no remorse.
Bhagat Singh, from Khatkar Kalan, kept a photograph of him. He was eight when Sarabha was hanged.
The village is small and the memorial there is maintained locally. Sarabha's name is known across Punjab and the village is not much visited.
He went to America as a student, joined the Ghadar organisation, worked on its press, and came back to Punjab in 1914 to organise a rising in the army.
He was taken in the round-up that followed the betrayal, having spent the previous months moving between cantonment towns trying to reach serving soldiers.
Bhagat Singh Ji kept his photograph. The village of Sarabha in Ludhiana district has a memorial and a college named for him and he was nineteen years old.