Chittagong armoury raiders: reminiscences

After the withdrawal of the non-violence non-cooperation movement which eventually led to the Chauri Chaura incident in 1922, the revolutionaries in Bengal came to the conclusion that Gandhiji's programme had definitely failed and so they decided to resume their revolutionary and terroristic activities. The government reported seventeen major incidents in one year from 24 May 1923 to September 1924. The situation had become one of considerable anxiety to the government for justifying the promulgation of the Bengal Ordinance. Government had to say "It was daily increasing in strength, and as in the years before 1916, ordinary measures had failed to check it" (Memoranda on the history of Terrorism in Bengal). Bengal Ordinance was therefore promulgated on 25 October 1924 which allowed the milder method of surveillance in the case of the rank and file, according to government. In the early morning sweep sixty three arrests were made in October and November under Bengal Ordinance No. 1 of 1924 and nineteen persons were incarcerated under Regulation III of 1818. Among them were the chief executive officer of the Cal cutta Corporation Subhash Chandra Bose and two members of the Bengal Legislative Council. The Chittagong revolutionaries Ananta Singh and Ganesh Ghosh were arrested on the first day, Ananta Singh under Bengal Ordinance in Chittagong and Ganesh Ghosh under Regulation III of 1818 in Calcutta. Surjya Sen, Charuvikash Dutta and Promode Chowdhary and few others managed to escape from arrest for some time more till 1926. Nirmal Sen was deported to Burma..