Bhagat Singh Hanged: India's Revolutionary Martyrs
Bhagat Singh was 23 when he was hanged in Lahore Central Jail on March 23, 1931. He'd been sentenced for killing a British police officer in retaliation for the death of Lala Lajpat Rai, a nationalist leader killed during a police baton charge. Rajguru and Sukhdev were hanged with him. The British authorities executed them a day earlier than scheduled, fearing public unrest, and buried them secretly. Singh had thrown a non-lethal bomb in the Central Legislative Assembly in 1929 and allowed himself to be arrested deliberately, to turn the trial into a platform. He read Marx in prison. He called himself an atheist in a 1931 essay written days before his execution. Born September 28, 1907. He became a radical at 15.
March 23, 1931
95 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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