1. Avtar Singh Sandhu, who wrote under the pen name Pash, was an Indian poet, one of the major poets in Punjabi of the 1970s.
14 Facts About Pash
1. 2.
Pash was killed by Sikh extremists on 23 March 1988.
3.
Pash was born as Avtar Singh Sandhu in 1950 in a small village called Talwandi Salem in Jalandhar district of Punjab, India, in a middle-class farmers family.
4.
Pash's father Sohan Singh Sandhu was a soldier in the Indian Army who composed poetry as a hobby.
5.
Pash grew up in the midst of the Naxalite movement, a revolutionary movement in India against the landlords, industrialists, traders, etc.
6.
Pash spent nearly two years in jail, before being finally acquitted.
7.
Pash became a popular political figure on the Left during this period and was awarded a fellowship at the Punjabi Academy of Letters in 1985.
8.
Pash ran to the United Kingdom and the United States the following year; while in the US, he became involved with the Anti-47 Front, opposing Khalistani violence.
9.
Pash's words had a great influence on the minds of the people.
10.
At the beginning of 1988 Pash was in Punjab for the renewal of his visa from the US.
11.
Pash was assassinated for being a vocal critic of Sikh militant leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale.
12.
Pash's poems have been translated in many languages including other Indian languages, Nepali and English.
13.
Poems written by Pash are popular in India, especially in Punjab and North India.
14.
In 2017, Punjabi rapper Kay Kap created a song entitled "My Land Is Tryin" featuring a narrative upon visualizing what must have happened moments before Pash was gunned down.