The Three Musketeers who shot two British Police Officers and were martyred

Anupama Nair

www.mediaeyenews.com

In the last part, I spoke about three martyrs Benoy, Badal and Dinesh and how Benoy killed a British police officer. Now read on…

“In the month of August, when there was torrential rains in Bengal – two young men dressed as poor Muslim men were wading through knee-deep waters to reach the Dolaiganj Station. They saw policemen searching for them everywhere. Benoy’s photo was pasted everywhere. They boarded a train to Narayanganj. The police searched each and every compartment, but could not locate them as the train was over-crowded. When the train reached Narayanganj, the police instructed every boat at the ghat to be checked as you need to cross the river to reach Calcutta. But their quarry managed to flee as Benoy and Supati alighted from the train much before Narayanganj, and they walked till the ghat to catch a boat to reach Calcutta. They were now disguised as a zamindar and his servant”.

The two young men managed to reach Calcutta safely, and were in hiding. Benoy knew in his mind that one day he would be caught. His premonition proved accurate as the Police Chief Sir Charles Tegart arrived at their place of hiding only to see – “the bird has flown from its cage” and Benoy and Supati escaped again. Then they met Netaji and P.C. Roy who requested them to leave India for a safe place abroad. However, Binoy refused and said “my aim is not safety, but to take the next and dramatic step – to destroy the British Empire in India”.

The successful mission inspired them to kill another autocrat Colonel Simpson, the Inspector General of Prisons, who was infamous for the brutal oppression of the prisoners in jails. The revolutionaries now decided to murder him and their aim – “shake the very roots of British Imperialism in India”. The epoch-making day was 8th December 1930, venue — the Writer's Building in Calcutta. It was business as usual as the British and Bengali officers were working. Suddenly, “three young boys broke down their harmony with a roar that would soon echo in the ears of each and every Indian in the entire country – Khyber to Chittagong and Kashmir to Comorin”. 

They fired shots as soon as they saw Simpson, who died immediately. Other British officers in the building — Twynam, Prentice, and Nelson  suffered from fatal injuries during the shootout. Soon the whole police force overpowered them, but the trio did not surrender. Badal took Potassium Cyanide and died on the spot at the age of around 22 years, while Binoy and Dinesh shot themselves with their revolvers. Benoy was taken to the hospital where he died on 13 December 1930, when he was around 22 years old. Only Dinesh survived the deadly injury, and he was convicted and the verdict of the trial was ‘death by hanging’. While foreseeing his execution, he wrote several letters from his cell on the “courage of the freedom fighters and his belief in the greatness of self-sacrifice for the nation”. Dinesh was only 19 years old when he was hanged on 7 July 1931 at Alipore Jail. His good fortune –, he could touch the feet of his guru and idol Netaji while he was in jail.

These three young and brave freedom fighters were treated as martyrs in Bengal and other parts of India. After Independence, Dalhousie Square was named “B.B.D. Bagh” — after the “three musketeers” Binoy, Badal, and Dinesh.

More than 90 years have passed since these three young martyrs made the supreme sacrifice for  their motherland and her  people. Till date, when I speak to the living freedom fighters who narrate these anecdotes with pride and emotion in their voice, I then wonder  have we “lived up to their dreams”? Today, in Independent India, when I read a newspaper or hear noisy debates in Parliament or on TV by the Opposition parties, I wish I could tell the freedom fighters, how far we the children of Free India have drifted away from the ideals where it intended to reach, when millions sacrificed their lives to see this day. I wonder have we reached the dream of Tagore as he said in Geetanjali:

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake”.

Please leave your valuable comments have we reached “into that heaven of Freedom” our forefathers dreamt of?

(Dedicated to my source of inspiration Late Rajendar Singh, who was born in Lyallpur, Lahore and later lived in Mumbai, who told me such wonderful stories. Dadu I hope you are in a wonderful place today and see the articles I have written and bless me to write more such articles in future).