Nation salutes Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Rajguru on their 88th martyrdom day
KS Diwan/ royalpatiala.in/ Chandigarh
The nation is observing Shaheed Diwas or Martyr’s Day today. Each year, March 23, homage is paid to the great revolutionary fighters Bhagat Singh, Shivaram Rajguru and Sukhdev Thapar who sacrificed their lives for the country.
It was on March 23, 1931, three young freedom fighters were hanged to death in the Lahore Central Jail. 88 years later, the country is remembering the martyrs Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev.
Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev Thapar and Shivaram Rajguru, the three revolutionary heroes in India’s freedom struggle who were hanged by the British Raj for their alleged involvement in the killing of John Saunders. The trio confused Saunders with JA Scott, a police officer who was believed to have thrashed Lala Lajpat Rai during a lathi charge in October 1928. Considered as one of India’s most influential revolutionaries, he is often referred to as Shaheeda azam Bhagat Singh.
As per historians Bhagat Singh had wanted to meet a soldier’s death and requested the British authorities that he and his associates, Sukhdev and Rajguru, either are blown by cannon or be shot dead instead of being hanged like criminals, which was not considered and his request rejected.
Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were sentenced to death in the Lahore conspiracy case and ordered to be hanged on 24 March 1931. The schedule was moved forward by 11 hours and the three were hanged on 23 March 1931 at 7:30 pm in the Lahore jail. It is reported that no magistrate at the time was willing to supervise Singh’s hanging as was required by law. The execution was supervised instead by an honorary judge, who also signed the three death warrants, as their original warrants had expired. The jail authorities then broke a hole in the rear wall of the jail, removed the bodies, and secretly cremated the three men under cover of darkness outside Ganda Singh Wala village, and then threw the ashes into the Sutlej river, about 10 kilometres from Ferozepore.
Britishers not only hanged him before dawn, ahead of schedule time but kept their bodies hanged, on the noose for one hour as Britishers were so much afraid of Bhagat Singh.
