Shaheed Ram Prasad Bismil
Pandit Ram Prasad Bismil
Pandit Ramprasad was born in the year 1897 at Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh. His ancestors hailed from the state of Gwalior. His father Muralidhar Upadhyay was with the municipality of Shahjahanpur. He was the second of two siblings. Recent researches also have shown that he could continue his education only till eighth standard due to financial problems. Undefeated by such obstacles, Bismil continued with poetry.
Ram Prasad Bismil joined the revolutionary organization Hindustan Republican Association in his youth and came in contact with other revolutionaries including, among others, Premkishan Khanna, Ashfaqulla Khan, Chandrasekhar Azad, Thakur Roshan Singh, Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, Bhagawati Charan, Rajguru Rai Ram Narain and Govind Prasad great grand son of Raja Tikait Rai Wazir Nawab of Oudh Awadh. Along with nine revolutionary colleagues, Bismil executed a meticulous plan for the looting of the government treasury carried in a train at Kakori. This happened on August 9, 1925 and is known as the Kakori Train Robbery. The incident created great upheavel in British India. The retribution was severe when the revolutionaries were caught. In a long drawn case, Ram prasad, Ashfaqullah, Roshan Singh and Rajendra Lahiri were sentenced to death. Ram Prasad Bismil was hanged by the British authorities on December 18, 1927 in Gorakhpur (located in the present Indian state of Uttar Pradesh), while Rai Ram Narain was jailed for life.