Binoy, Badal and Dinesh
D. Bhattacharya
>Lord Dalhousie was the governor-general of India some time in the
>nineteenth century whereas Benoy, Badal and Dinesh's daring attack
>on Writer's Building occurred in the 1930's.
>Actually, Benoy et al intended to assassinate Inspector Tegart,
>an infamous police agent with whom the revolutionaries in Bengal
>had a long-standing feud. They failed to do this, although they
>did succeed in assassinating Inspector Simpson. In general their
>attack on Writer's Building was more of a symbolic act, the purpose
>of which, as someone said, was "to beard the British lion in his
>den" (Writer's Building in Calcutta was the British administrative
>headquarters in Eastern India).
Interestingly, Binoy Bosu, Dinesh and Badal Gupta (BBD) all hailed
from Dhaka district. Binoy was a student of Dhaka Mitford Medical College
and received his initiation under the revolutionary leader Hemchandra Ghosh.
After the killing of an infamous police officer (Loman (sp?) by name) in
August of 1930, Binoy went into hiding. He was selected to carry out the
assassination of Simpson (and somebody else, then affiliated with the Home
Ministry). The Calcutta Writer's Building Operation took place on 8th
December, 1930. Simpson was killed and several other British officers were
injured, but the police managed to surround BBD. After running out of
ammunitions they took potassium cyanide and shot themselves in the head.
Badal died on the spot. Binoy and Dinesh were taken to the hospital. Later
Binoy deliberately opened his bandage and contaminated himself, he died 5 days
later. The Govt. couldn't get any information from Dinesh about the
organization--he was sentenced to death by hanging.
I am not sure whether BBD went to kill Tegart. There was an attempt
on Tegart's life in August of 1930, my understanding is Jugantar Group was
responsible for that. BBD belonged to Bengal Volunteers.
1930 must be considered as the pinnacle year of the anti-British
armed revolutionary movement that came out of Bengal. One can only remember
with wonderment about that day in April of 1930 (18th April) when Mastarda
Shurjo Sen with 65 of his fellow comrades captured the Chittagong Armory and
Police Line and retained the city under his control for two days. This was
the first time that revolutionaries fought wearing uniforms and kept a city
out of British control for such a long period of time.
>Sayan Bhattacharya
shubhechha, Dipen