Harcharan Singh Longowal
President of the Akali Dal who led the Dharam Yudh Morcha and signed the 1985 accord with Rajiv Gandhi. Assassinated by militants weeks later.
Harchand Singh Longowal was born in 1932 at Gidariani in Sangrur district and became a preacher and a leader of the Akali Dal, president from 1980.
He led the Dharam Yudh Morcha from 1982, a peaceful mass agitation for the demands of the Anandpur Sahib Resolution, in which tens of thousands of Sikhs courted arrest. He was in the Darbar Sahib during Operation Blue Star and was arrested.
On 24 July 1985 he signed the Rajiv–Longowal Accord with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Less than a month later, on 20 August 1985, he was shot dead at a gurdwara at Sherpur near Sangrur by militants who saw the accord as a betrayal. Its promises were never implemented.
