Khudiram Bose

For his role in the Muzaffarpur Conspiracy Case, along with Prafulla Chaki, he was sentenced to death, for the attempted assassination of a British judge, Magistrate Douglas Kingsford, by throwing bombs on the carriage they suspected the man was in.

[1] At the time of his hanging, Khudiram was 18 years, 8 months, and 8 days, 10 hours old making him the second youngest revolutionary in India.

"[3][4][5][6] Bal Gangadhar Tilak, in his newspaper Kesari, defended the two young men and called for immediate swaraj.

Following the traditional customs prevalent in the culture, the newborn child was symbolically sold to his eldest sister in exchange of three handfuls of food grains locally known as Khud, in an attempt to save him from dying at an early age.

Aparupa Roy, his elder sister, brought him to her house at Hatgachha village under the Daspur Police Station.

[13] At the young age of 16, Khudiram took part in planting bombs near the police stations and targeted government officials.

This was packed into a hollowed section of Herbert Broom's Commentaries on the Common Law and delivered wrapped in a brown paper to Kingsford's house by Paresh Mallick, a young revolutionary.

[16] On their return, Hemchandra provided the bomb, which was composed of 6 ounces of dynamite, a detonator, and a black powder fuse.

[16] In the meantime, Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki adopted the name of Haren Sarkar and Dinesh Chandra Roy respectively and took up residence in a charitable inn (Dharamshala) run by Kishorimohan Bandyopadhyay.

Pretending to be schoolboys, they surveyed the Muzaffarpur park situated opposite The British Club, frequented by Kingsford.

[citation needed] Around midday, a civil named Trigunacharan Ghosh noticed a young man coming his way.

The entire town descended at the police station to take a look at the teenage boy surrounded by a team of armed policemen.

Instead of believing Khudiram, the British colonial authorities thought it more proper to detach Prafulla's head from his corpse and send it to Calcutta for better confirmation.

They were joined later in the trial by Kulkamal Sen, Nagendra Lal Lahiri, and Satischandra Chakraborty—all of them fought the case without any fees.

On 13 June, the scheduled date for the verdict and sentence, the judge and the prosecutors received an anonymous letter of warning, which told them that there was one more bomb coming for them from Kolkata and that henceforth.

However, after some persuasion by his counselors — with the logic that if he receives a life sentence instead of getting hanged because of this appeal, he would live to serve his nation once free and he would have age on his side when that happens — Khudiram finally agreed, in a detached manner, to go along with his defence team.

Narendrakumar Basu came to Khudiram's defence and concentrated all his legal skills and experience in this case to save a boy who had overnight become a wonder and a hero for the whole country.

[citation needed] Lastly, Narendrakumar Basu said that Prafulla aka "Dinesh" (the name used in the trial) was stronger than Khudiram was, and he was the bomb-expert among the two of them.

[citation needed] As Khudiram was the only of the two alive, his lone statement of a two-man team was the foundation for the entire case.

Since all the legal arguments put forth by Narendrakumar Basu were believed to be technically correct, it was hoped that for the sake of the law—about which the British prided themselves ad infinitum — Khudiram's life would, at least, be spared.

Upendranath Sen, the lawyer-journalist of the Bengali news daily "Bengalee", who was close to Khudiram, reports having reached the venue by 5 AM, in a car with all the necessary funerary arrangements and clothes.

After the hanging, the funeral procession went through the city, with police guards holding back the crowd all along the central artery street.

The Amrita Bazar Patrika, one of the prominent dailies of that era, carried the story of the hanging the next day, on 12 August.

An established Anglo-Indian newspaper, The Empire, wrote:[17] "Khudiram Bose was executed this morning...It is alleged that he mounted the scaffold with his body erect.

The Kesari, nationalist Marathi newspaper, observed on 26 May 1908:[17]"Neither the Jubilee murder of 1897, nor the reported tampering of the Sikh regiments had produced so much commotion, and the English public opinion seems inclined to regard birth of the bomb in India as the most extraordinary event since the mutiny at 1857.

[citation needed] After martyrdom, Khudiram became so popular that weavers of Bengal started weaving a special type of dhoti, with 'Khudiram' written on its side.

[citation needed] In his own words, Khudiram made a statement (which was updated) while under arrest, recorded by the special branch of the police, before he was hanged: "I was naughty in my childhood, But after I entered Midnapore Collegiate School a change overtook me".

Revolutionary, Khudiram Bose as a captive.
News report on Khudiram Bose
Death Sentence of Khudiram Bose
News report of Khudiram Bose's death in English.