Ardhendu Dastidar - a revolutionary of Armoury Raid of Chittagang.
ARDHENDU DASTIDAR belonged to the second group, In his early teens he left the roof of his father due to difference of opinion in political matters with him. He became an active member of the revolutionary party of Chitagong under the able, leadership of Master-da (Surya Sen). Just a few weeks before the storming of the Armoury, he got severely burnt due to an accident in manufacturing picric acid powder meant for high explosive bombs. He had not fully recovered from his injuries when he joined the party that carried out the raid on the Police Line on the 18th. With the main body of the raiders he, retired to the Jalalabad Hill. He happened to be the sixth man to be wounded in the exchange of bullets with the British soldiers. He received a deadly wound in his abdomen from the enemy's bullet which rendered him unconscious and he was left on the field as dead.
He regained his consciousness and found another comrade, equally left behind, trying to move himself up and leave the place. The dying man requested him to come near him. Poor Ardhendu with supreme effort hobbled a few yards on the uneven surface of the Hill with a view to gradually muster sufficient strength for leaving the place with the aid of the comrade.
It was an impossible task for him and he surrendered to fate.
Seeing his friend hesitant in leaving him behind, Ardhendu importuned him to drag himself out of harm's way as expeditiously as he could. The last request to his parting comrade was to tell his revered Master-da, if by chance they happened to meet together, that Ardhendu remembered till his last breath his leader's words, "Liberty or Death."
Ardhendu suffered one wound in the middle of his right arm.
His right little finger was fractured and he had a fatal wound on the left side of his abdomen. There was a bandaged wound on the right thigh. This was apparently due to his burns caused by the explosion.
On the next day of the fight, i.e., on April 23, a small group climbed the top of the hill to find Ardhendu Dastidar in a precarious condition. He was removed, from the place before it was 10 o'clock and taken in an armoured train to the Chittagong General Hospital where he was admitted at 1-40 p.m. on April 23.
He refused to give out anything except his own and his father's name and all efforts for getting the name of his native village failed to elicit any reply. He would not say how he received the wounds. He was as stern and unbending as the rock. Then the Sadar Sub-Divisional Officer, who had already earned notoriety for easily securing confessional statement from a dying,
or may be dead persons, appeared on the scene at night. He asked everybody including the Surgeon who, considering the serious condition of the case, was in constant attendance, to leave the room on the score of avoiding 'golmal' that had been causing, according to the Magistrate, great discomfort to the patient. As directed, everyone, the nurse not excluded, had to leave the room. What transpired nobody knew. The Magistrate produced a full confession of gasping Ardhendu during the trial implicating a number of accused in the case.
The Assistant Surgeon had to visit the patient a number of times during the short period of life that was fast ebbing out. The prosecution wanted the world to believe that Ardhendu had made a voluntary confession to him.
Ardhendu struggled with death a few hours more and expired at 1-50 a.m. on April 24, 1930 (the continuing night of April 23). (courtesy; Author Kali Charan Ghosh )
No comments:
Post a Comment