Ashfaqulla Khan

Ashfaqulla Khan
Born (1900-10-22)22 October 1900
Shahjahanpur, North-Western Provinces, British India
Died 19 December 1927(1927-12-19) (aged 27)
Faizabad, United Provinces, British India
Nationality Indian
Other names Ashfaq Ulla Khan
Organization Hindustan Republican Association
Known for Indian freedom fighter

Ashfaqulla Khan (22 October 1900 – 19 December 1927) was a freedom fighter in Indian independence movement.

Early life

Ashfaqulla Khan was born in Shahjahanpur, North-Western Provinces, British India to Shafiqur Rahman and Mazharunissa. He was the youngest among his six siblings.

Kakori train robbery

To give a fillip to their movement and buy arms and ammunition to carry out their activities, the revolutionaries organised a meeting on 8 August 1925 in Shahjahanpur. After a lot of deliberations it was decided to loot the government treasury carried in the trains. On 9 August 1925, Khan and other revolutionaries, namely Ram Prasad Bismil, Rajendra Lahiri, Thakur Roshan Singh, Sachindra Bakshi, Chandrashekar Azad, Keshab Chakravarthy, Banwari Lal, Mukundi Lal, Manmathnath Gupta looted the train carrying British government money in Kakori nearLucknow.

On the morning of 26 September 1925, Bismil was caught by the police and Khan was the only one untraced by the police. He went into hiding and moved to Banaras from Bihar where he worked in an engineering company for 10 months. He wanted to move abroad to learn engineering to further help the freedom struggle and so he went to Delhi to find out ways to move out of the country. He took the help of one of his Pathan friend who in turn betrayed him by informing the police about his whereabouts.[1]

Khan was detained in the Faizabad jail and a case was filed against him. His brother Riyasatullah was his legal counsel. While in jail, Khan recited the Quran. The case for the Kakori dacoity was concluded by awarding death sentence to Bismil, Khan, Rajendra Lahiri and Thankur Roshan Singh. The others were given life sentences.[2]

The actions of Ashfaqullah Khan and his compatriots have been depicted in the Hindi film Rang De Basanti, where his character was depicted by Kunal Kapoor. Chetanya Adib portrayed Khan in Star Bharat television series Chandrashekhar.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Singh, Aparna (2 August 2004). "Daredevilry of sons of the soil". The Times of India. Retrieved 2018-01-07.
  2. ↑ "Ashfaqulla Khan: The Immortal Revolutionary". Government of India. Archived from the original on 2002-11-05.

Further reading

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