Patriot Dinesh Gupta who along with two others shot dead IG Simpson, Kolkata - British India

Navrang India August 14, 2019
google.com

shooting Inspector Simpson,Kolkata. google.com

Dinesh Gupta. en.wikipedia.org

 Tomorrow we will be celebrating our independence day with extra enthusiasm  and vigor because Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh  have become part of India, enjoying the same rights as other states. It is also an occasion to remember those freedom fighters and patriots who gave their lives for this hard-earned freedom. In this post you will find a brief note on the life of a young patriot Dinesh Gupta of Bengal , a revolutionary who gave his life along with two others. They murdered a high ranking IG of Prisons N.S.Simpson of British India.
SlidePlayer

The colonial rule in the early 20th century under the Crown administration was as bad as it was under the East India company rule that first grabbed Bengal in the 1700s under Robert Clive. By this time, the Indian subcontinent that once enjoyed a strong economy slumped to a weak one because of British administration's discriminatory policies that destroyed the vast cottage  and village industries, shipping and textile industries. Further, Indian natives were forced to buy the imported products  such as textiles, etc  at a higher price from England made from  cheap raw materials imported from India. The wily British grabbed the whole of Indian subcontinent by dishonest means except the princely states which were at their mercy. Besides, their scant respect for the religious sentiments, racial discrimination and exploitation of our natural resources angered the Indians. India was forced to get involved in the WWI on the side of the British. India's war time contribution was vast. India became their cash cow with which they strengthened their economy manifold. Native Indians'  frustrations, hatred for the British arrogance and dominance  led them to take to violence as a means to instill fear in them to drive them out of India.  Bengal and Maharastra provinces became  hot beds of freedom movements. revolutionaries and freedom fighters. Their intention was to get rid of the British as early as possible so that  the native people could get a chance to breathe fresh air and decide their future on their own. One such revolutionary was Dinesh Chandra Gupta of Bengal.

Writer's bldg Kolkata Simpson was shot
google.com

Memory of martyrdom Writer's building, Kolkata
Dinesh Chandra Gupta or Dinesh Gupta (6 December 1911 -7 July 1931), a Bengali revolutionary  was saddened by the oppressive  British colonial rule and made up his mind to sacrifice his life to liberate India from the clutches of British hawks. With firm determination backed by guts, he had begun to figure out ways and means to achieve his goal, irrespective of the consequences. Ultimately, he became a martyr and made a mark in the pages of India's freedom movements.

Statues of Dinesh, Badal and Basu,
 Kolkata google.com

Benoy Badal Dinesh google.com


Born on 6 December 1911 in Josholong in Munshiganj District, now in Bangladesh, Dinesh Gupta, as a student  in  a Dhaka College, joined Bengal Volunteers. This group  was organized and led by  a great freedom fighter of exceptional ability Subhash Chandra Bose in 1928, at a time when  Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress meeting was on. Driven by patriotic zeal and keen desire to free India, more volunteers joined this group and it became an  active revolutionary association . At the outset, they wanted to get rid of those infamous British police officers whose attitude toward Indian natives was unbearable. Dinesh Gupta was in Midnapore town undergoing training with   local revolutionaries in the use of firearms. Revolutionaries  who imparted training to him  were responsible for the assassination of three District Magistrates in succession, Douglas, Burge, and Peddy.

In Calcutta, Col NS Simpson, the Inspector General of Prisons,  attained notoriety for his brutal oppression of Indian  prisoners in the jails.  His treatment of Indian prisoners with brute forces  dismayed countless Indian leaders. The association of revolutionaries, having come to the fag end, decided to zoom in on Col NS Simpson and get him out of the way. They thought by launching an attack on the Secretariat Building - the Writers' Building in the Dalhousie Square in Kolkata and the elimination of a high British official  like Simpson would  strike a terror in the British official circles.
 
Dressed in European costume, on  8 December 1930 Dinesh, along with Benoy Basu and Badal Gupta, entered the Writers' Building and shot dead Simpson. In the aftermath there ensued a brief gun fight between the youth and the police. Some other officers like Twynam, Prentice and Nelson, during the gun battle  suffered injuries. At last, the police overpowered the young revolutionaries  and pinned them down. The youths, as it was there intention not to be caught by the police and be hanged, decided to kill themselves. Badal Gupta took Potassium cyanide while Benoy and Dinesh, in a jiffy, shot themselves with their own revolvers. Benoy was taken to the hospital where he died on 13 December 1930. Among the trio, Dinesh survived the near-fatal injury. He was convicted  by the court and sentenced to death.

 Dinesh was sent to Alipore jail  where he was hanged  to death on 7 July 1931. Before his sentence, from the condemned cell  Dinesh  wrote  as many as 92 letters to his sister which were later compiled into a book 'Ami Shubhash Bolchhi'. 

Soon after this incident in which all the three revolutionaries were dead for the sake of their motherland, Kanailal Bhattacharjee., another patriot and freedom fighter became a vigilante and took revenge  for the hanging by killing on 27 July 1931 Mr. Gerlick, the  British judge who presided over the Simpson Murder case and who sentenced Dinesh to death. At the Alipore Central jail Dinesh did not keep quiet. He  translated a short story of Anton Chekhov which was published in Prabasi Magazine.

All the three youths - Benoy, Badal, and Dinesh  became martyrs in Bengal and other parts of India. After independence in August 1947, Dalhousie Square was named B.B.D. Bagh - after the Benoy-Badal-Dinesh trio.  Further, to honor their bravery and in  memory of their attack on the writers' building, Calcutta a plate was engraved in the wall of the  building's first floor.