Surya Sen, April 18, Year 1930

Surya Sen (22 March 1894 – 12 January 1934)

APRIL 18, YEAR 1930.

‘The Chittagong Uprising’, a Declaration by the young revolutionaries against the oppressive British was termed as Chittagong Armoury Raid by the English rulers.

It was a brave attempt to raid the armoury by armed Indian independence fighters led by Surya Sen on April 18 1930 .

Surya Sen (22 March 1894 – 12 January 1934), also popular as ‘Master Da’, as he was a teacher, later became an Indian revolutionary who was influential in the independence movement against British rule in India.

Surya Sen is best known for leading the 1930 Chittagong armoury raid.

Sen gathered some hardened nationalist revolutionised and devised a plan to attack and capture the two main armouries in Chittagong.

The plan included destroying the telegraph and telephone office, taking hostages the members of the European Club and also rail and communication lines were to be cut in order to sever Chittagong from Calcutta.

This to be followed with looting of Imperial bank in the city and compelling the British authorities to free various jailed revolutionaries.

The action started at 22:00 on 18 April 1930, capturing some British, while another group of ten men led by Lokenath Bal took the Auxiliary Forces armoury.

Around 65 people took part in the raid. Though ammunition could now be located but did succeed in cutting telephone and telegraph wires and disrupting train movements.

Along with this, 16 revolutionaries of the group captured the European club’s headquarters (in Pahartali) but as the luck would have it, only a few members were present because of it being Good Friday.

Later, the revolutionaries gathered outside the police armoury, where Sen took a military salute, hoisted a national flag, and proclaimed a Provisional Revolutionary Government.

After the Chittagong raid in 1930 and a fierce battle where over 80 British Indian Army soldiers and 12 revolutionaries were killed.

Later Sen was arrested on 16 February 1933, from Gairala village after a tip-off from an insider, Netra Sen, an insider of the group for
the greed of reward money of ₹10,000.
But before Netra Sen was able to get his reward, he was assassinated by the revolutionaries.

Surya Sen was hanged by the British administration on 12 January 1934.
tried and was hanged on 12 January 1934.

Many of his fellow revolutionaries were also caught and sentenced to long periods of imprisonment.