Surya Sen
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Date of Birth |
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Date of Death |
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Jan 8, 1934 |
Place of Birth |
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India |
Surya
Sen, a teacher by profession,he was a prominent Bengali Indian freedom
fighter and was the chief architect of anti-British freedom movement in
Chittagong, Bengal (now in Bangladesh). A resident of Noapara under
Chittagong, he was initiated into revolutionary ideas in 1916 by one of
his teachers while he was a student of BA Class in the Behrampore
College. On his return to Chittagong in 1918, he became the president of
the Chittagong branch of the Indian National Congress, revived the
hardline patriotic organisation and became a teacher of the local
national school. Hence, he was known as Mastarda (teacher brother).
By 1923 Surya Sen established a number of hardline
patriotic organisations (including Jugantar) in different parts of
Chittagong district. Aware of the limited equipment and other resources
of the freedom fighters, he was convinced of the need for secret
guerrilla warfare against the colonial Government. One of his early
successful undertakings was a broad day robbery at the treasury office
of the Assam-Bengal Railway at Chittagong. His subsequent major success
in the anti-British revolutionary violence was the Chittagong Armoury
Raid in 1930. Surya Sen, being constantly followed up by the police, had
to hide at the house of Sabitri Devi, a widow, near Patiya. A police
and military force under Captain Cameron surrounded the house on 13 June
1932.Cameron was shot dead while ascending the staircase and Surya Sen
along with Pritilata Waddedar and Kalpana Dutta escaped to safety.
Ultimately a villager revealed the hiding place of Surya Sen at Gahira
village in Chittagong and in the early hours of 17th February 1933, a
Gurkha contingent surrounded the hideout and a soldier seized Surya Sen
while he was trying to break the cordon. Tarakeswar Dastidar, the new
president of the Chittagong Branch Jugantar Party, made a preparation to
rescue Surya Sen from the Chittagong Jail. But the plot was unearthed
and consequently frustrated. Tarakeswar and Kalpana along with others
were arrested. Special tribunals tried Surya Sen, Tarakeswar Dastidar,
and Kalpana Datta in 1933. Sentenced to death in August 1933, Surya Sen
was hanged in the Chittagong Jail on the 8th January, 1934. At the time
of his execution, the detainees kept up a continuous chorus of
revolutionary songs. The villager who had revealed the hiding place of
Surya Sen to the police was murdered in broad daylight on the 8th
January, 1934.