Behari Lal Verma, B.A., alias Behari Lal, Markande, son of Lala Kalu Mall, Village Possi, P. S. Garhshankar, District Hoshiarpur. He passed the Entrance Examination from the D. A. V. High School at Hoshiarpur in 1903. He emigrated to the Fiji Islands in 1904 where he worked in various capacities. In 1908 he proceeded to Vancouver where he became acquainted with Tarak Nath Das. H. H. Rahim, Guru Dutt Kumar, Sant Teja Singh, and other seditionists. In September 1908 he joined the Washington University and studied there for one year. Later on he joined the Polytechnic College, Oakland, California, but had to leave if after six months owing to illness. He next worked as a labourer in a saw-mill near Portland, Oregon and returned to Vancouver after a few months, where he worked as an estate broker and an interpreter in the local Supreme Court, and Country Court. At this time he paid a visit to Oakland where he picked up the acquaintance of Lala Har Dayal, M.A. He stayed in Vancouver till 1913. During his stay he attended the lectures delivered by Bhagwan Singh, Raja Singh, H. H. Rahim, and Teja Singh against the Canadian Immigration laws. He purchased some land and houses at Vancouver. He was prosecuted for perjury, but acquitted as the prosecution witnesses were bought off by him. In December 1913 he left, Vancouver for India by the s.s. "Empress of India". At Hong Kong he volunteered to arrange for a ship for Gurdit Singh's (G-46) party, but was alarmed on hearing seditious lectures delivered there by Gurdit Singh and others and therefore refused to assist them. He also became acquainted with many disaffected Punjabi Sikhs employed in the Hong Kong Police and there he used to write addresses on envelopes for despatch of the Ghadr Newspaper. He returned to India in March 1914, but seems to have been in California again (in 1922). In 1927-29 he was operating a passport agency in Ludhiana. By 1930, however, he was reported to be in Calio La Paz, No. 724 Jurez Chuh, Mexico. At about that time he wrote a letter to the Ghadr Party to the effect that he had taken an option on 50,000 acres in Mexico, and that he was prepared to charter them to the Ghadr Party, and adding that youths should be recruited from India and sent to Mexico where a strong organisation could be built up. He also promised that he would arrange with the Mexican Government for them to be recruited in the Army and Police and thus impart to them Military training.

Description : Age 35 years (1918).