Benoy-badal-dinesh

On 8 December 1930, Benoy Basu along with Dinesh Gupta and Badal Gupta, dressed in European clothing, entered the Secretariat Building- The Writers' Building in Dalhousie Square, Kolkata and killed Col. NS Simpson in his office. Simpson was shot seven times with three bullets to his head. Col. Simpson, the Inspector General of Prisons, was notorious for the brutal oppression of the inmates in jails. They killed him to strike terror into the hearts of the British Raj’s officials. They were a part of Bengal Volunteers, an underground radical group created by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, against the British colonial rule in India. 

 

•    During the 1928 Kolkata session of the Indian National Congress, Netaji invited the armed revolutionaries & the non-violent Congress to be united in one platform for one common purpose i.e. INDEPENDENCE. Netaji got the motivation for this union from DESHBANDHU CHITTARANJAN DAS.

•    Netaji formed a group of men & women who were well-trained, well-disciplined & full of patriotism & sacrifice. It was named Bengal Volunteers Corps. Subhas Chandra Bose himself was the GOC (General Officer Commanding).

•    Under Major SATYA GUPTA, this group was trained in manners, discipline, and chivalry. They used to do march-past at Park Circus daily in uniform. After the Kolkata session of the Congress was ended, the Bengal Volunteers continued its activities. Soon, it was turned into an active revolutionary association.

•    Bengal Volunteers decided to launch Operation Freedom in the early 1930s, mainly to protest against the police cruelty in different jails in Bengal.

•    In August 1930, the radical group planned to assassinate Lowman, the Inspector General of Police who was due to present in the Medical School Hospital in Dhaka to see an injured senior police official undergoing treatment. 

•    On 29 August 1930, Benoy Basu who was a student of the Medical School, casually clad in a traditional Bengali outfit, broke the security and fired at close range. Lowman died instantly and Hodson, the Superintendent of Police, was seriously injured. Later on, Benoy Basu managed to escape to Kolkata from Dhaka.

•    The next target was  Col N. S. Simpson, the Inspector General of Prisons.

 

•    On the 8th of December 1930, The three young men outfitted in European clothing entered the Writer’s Building in Kolkata and opened fire from their revolvers on Col N S Simpson, IG Prison-Kolkata.

•    Soon after a brief gunfight between the British and the young men, the British succeeded in overpowering the trio but the men refused to surrender. 

•    The gunfight occurred on the second floor and is known as the Battle of Verandah. 

•    Badal Gupta immediately swallowed Potassium Cyanide, while Benoy and Dinesh shot themselves point blank with their firearms. 

•    Benoy breathed his last in a hospital on December 13, 1930.

•    Of the three bravehearts, only Dinesh survived. Convicted, he was sentenced to death by hanging for anti-government activities and murder. He was martyred on 7th July 1931, at the Alipore Jail, aged 19.

•    While in Alipore Jail, he wrote letters to his sister which were later compiled into the book Ami Shubhash Bolchhi.

•    Soon after that, Kanailal Bhattacharjee took revenge for the hanging by killing Mr Gerlick (the judge of the Dinesh Gupta case) on 27 July 1931.

•    Dalhousie Square is now known as B.B.D Bagh, the shortened version of Benoy-Badal-Dinesh Bagh. 

 

•    Basu was born on 11 September 1908, in the village Rohitbhog in the Munshiganj District, now in Bangladesh. His father, RebatimohanBasu was an engineer. 

•    After passing the Matriculation Examination in Dhaka, Benoy joined the Mitford Medical School (now Sir Salimullah Medical College).

•    Under the influence of Hemchandra Ghosh, a revolutionary of Dhaka, Benoy joined the Mukti Sangha, a secret society closely associated with the Jugantar Party. He could not complete medical studies due to his association with revolutionary activities.

 

•    Dinesh Gupta was born on 6 December 1911 in the village of Josholong in Munshiganj District, present-day Bangladesh.

•    Dinesh joined Bengal Volunteers when he was in college in 1928, at the occasion of the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress. 

•    For a short while, Dinesh Gupta was in Midnapore training local revolutionaries in the use of firearms. Revolutionaries trained by him were responsible for the assassination of three District Magistrates in succession, Douglas, Burge, and Peddy.

•    Dinesh Gupta translated a short story by Anton Chekhov, which was published in Prabasi Magazine. 

 

•    Badal Gupta was born as Sudhir Gupta in the village PurbaShimulia (East Shimulia) in the Bikrampur area of Dhaka, now in Munshiganj District, Bangladesh. 

•    Badal was greatly inspired by Nikunja Sen, a teacher at the Banaripara School of Bikrampur. Badal joined the Bengal Volunteers as a member. 

•    Badal was influenced by the revolutionary activities of his two paternal uncles, the Late Dharani Nath Gupta, and Nagendra Nath Gupta, both involved in the Alipore Bomb Case and imprisoned along with Rishi Aurobindo Ghosh.

 

•    Revolutionary movements across India were not isolated incidents. The revolutionary groups from Delhi, Lahore, UP, Maharashtra and Bengal were in close touch with one another and often coordinated their operations.

•    Benoy, Badal, and Dinesh, the heroes of the famous Battle of Verandah, picked up from where Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru left off ─ afterwards, others came forward to carry the mantle ─ thus continued the struggle. 

•    In the time between 1928 and 1933 the armed revolutionaries made a great push to drive the foreigners out of India ─ their fierce assaults complemented the non-violent movements that ran in parallel. 

•    Contrary to popular belief, British people were very afraid of these fearless warriors, who, despite their inadequate means, took on the mighty empire and eliminated scores of European officers─ many more white men, in fear, packed their bags and left India for good.

•    Armed freedom fighters taught the British Government to be watchful while dealing with the nonviolent demonstrators. Every act of cruelty or brutality was responded to in kind. It was the revolutionaries who burst the myth of Her Majesty’s Empire in India and provided the much-needed mental currency to the nonviolent demonstrators.