After they were arrested, tried and imprisoned for life, he and Singh initiated a historic hunger strike protesting against the abusive treatment of Indian political prisoners, and eventually secured some rights for them.

He was a close associate of freedom fighters such as Chandra Shekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh, the latter of whom he met in Cawnpore in 1924.

To subdue the rise of revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh, the British government decided to implement the Defence of India Act 1915, which gave the police a free hand.

[5] On 8 April 1929, Singh and Dutt threw two bombs inside the assembly rushing from Visitor's Gallery.

[6][7][8] The leaflet claimed that the act was done to oppose the Trade Disputes and the Public Safety Bill being presented in the Central Assembly and the death of Lala Lajpat Rai.

[11][12] The Tribune reported the incident as: When Mr Patel from India got up to give his ruling on the Public Safety Bill, two bombs were thrown from a gallery near the seat of George Schuster.

A red pamphlet "Hindustan Socialist Republican Army" signed by Balraj, Honorary Chief, was thrown into the blazing fire.

They were sentenced to life imprisonment, and while in prison, they initiated a historic hunger strike to protest against the abusive treatment of Indian political prisoners.The hunger strike lasted for 63 days, during which time Dutt and Singh were subjected to brutal treatment by the prison authorities.

Dutt outlived all his comrades (except Jaidev Kapoor) and died two hours after the midnight of 19—20 July 1965 in the AIIMS hospital in Delhi after a long illness.

He was survived by his only daughter, Bharti Dutta Bagchi,[14] in Patna where his house was situated in the Jakkanpur area.

During the filming of Shaheed, once the lead actor Manoj Kumar went to meet Bhagat Singh's mother, as she was not well at that time and was admitted in a hospital of Chandigarh.