Unsung Heroes | History Corner | Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, Ministry of Culture, Government of India

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Paying tribute to India’s freedom fighters

Nikhilranjan Guharoy

Faridpur, West Bengal

July 31, 2022

A great revolutionary who spent twenty years of his life in a British prison, Nikhilranjan Guharoy(1888-1974) was born in the Faridpur district of undivided Bengal. Nothing is known about the village he was born in, his parentage, early life, education, and his political association.

His name surfaced in the Nadia-Shibpur dacoity case, which is important in the annals of the Swadeshi dacoity for two reasons: the risk involved in the enterprise compared to its yield; and the imprisonment of a large number of revolutionaries. For the revolutionaries, dacoity was the only means to mobilize funds they needed to buy arms and ammunition.

On 30 September 1915, a group of 25 revolutionaries armed with German Mauser pistols attacked Krishnapada Biswas’s house at the midnight, a rich merchant in Shibpur village of the Kotwali police station in Nadia. On their return journey in the boat, they opened fire at the crowd chasing them which killed three people.

Later, Nikhilranjan along with fifteen others was arrested and transmigrated for life. His co-prisoners in Cellular Jail included Barindrakumar Ghosh, Upendranath Bandyopadhyay, Ullaskar Datta, and Veer Savarkar. He was released along with other convicts during the First World War; only to be sent back to the Cellular Jail again in the Kandi Bomb Case in 1930 till his final release in 1946.

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