On April 8, 1929, Bhagat Singh and B.K. Dutt threw a bomb in the Central Legislative Assembly to make the deaf hear. As intended, nobody was hurt by the low intensity explosion as Bhagat Singh had aimed the bomb carefully, to land away from the seated members, on the floor. Bhagat Singh and B.K.Dutt let themselves be arrested, even when they could have escaped, to use their court appearances as a forum for revolutionary propaganda to advocate the revolutionaries’ point of view and, in the process, rekindle patriotic sentiments in the hearts of the people. Bhagat Singh surrendered his automatic pistol, the same one he had used to pump bullets into Saunder’s body, knowing fully well that the pistol would be the highest proof of his involvement in the Saunders’ case.
On 15 April 1929, the 'Lahore Bomb Factory' was discovered by the Lahore police, and the other members of HSRA were arrested, out of which 7 turned informants, helping the police to connect Bhagat Singh in the murder of J. P. Saunders. Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev were charged with the murder. Bhagat Singh decided to use the court as a tool to publicise his cause for the independence of India.
On 15 April 1929, the 'Lahore Bomb Factory' was discovered by the Lahore police, and the other members of HSRA were arrested, out of which 7 turned informants, helping the police to connect Bhagat Singh in the murder of J. P. Saunders. Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and Sukhdev were charged with the murder. Bhagat Singh decided to use the court as a tool to publicise his cause for the independence of India.
Bhagat Singh was charged with attempt to murder under section 307 of the Indian Penal Code. Asaf Ali, a member of the Congress Party was his lawyer. The Trial started on 7 May 1929. The Crown was represented by the public prosecutor Rai Bahadur Suryanarayan and the trial magistrate was a British Judge, P.B Pool. The prosecution’s star witness was Sergeant Terry who said that a pistol had been found on Bhagat Singh’s person when he was arrested in the Assembly. This was not factually correct because Bhagat Singh had himself surrendered the pistol while asking the police to arrest him. Even the eleven witnesses who said that they had seen the two throwing the bombs seemed to have been tutored. The entire incident had been so sudden that nobody could have anticipated it. The magistrate committed both of them to the Sessions Court of Judge Leonard Middleton. Judge Middleton ruled that he had no doubt that the defendant’s acts were ‘deliberate’ and rejected the plea that the bombs were deliberately low-intensity bombs since the impact of the explosion had shattered the wood of one and a half inch thickness in the Assembly. The two were persuaded to file an appeal which was rejected and they were sentenced to transportation for life (fourteen years).
The police had gathered ‘substantial evidence’ against Bhagat Singh and he was charged with involvement in the killings of Saunders and Head Constable Chanan Singh. The authorities had collected nearly 600 witnesses to establish their charges, which included his colleagues, Jai Gopal and Hans Raj Vohra turning government approvers. Singh was re-arrested for the murder of Saunders and the life imprisonment sentence was kept in abeyance till the outcome of the murder trial
Bhagat Singh was sent to Mianwali Jail and B. Dutt to Borstal Jail in Lahore. They were put on the same train, though in different compartments, on 12 March 1930 but after requesting the officer on duty to allow them to sit together for some distance of the journey, Bhagat Singh conveyed to Dutt that he should go on a hunger strike on 15 June and that he would do the same in Mianwali Jail. On reaching Mianwali jail, Bhagat Singh found that European prisoners got better accomodation, food and daily use items compared to Indian prisoners.
While in jail, Bhagat Singh and other prisoners launched a hunger strike advocating for the rights of prisoners and those facing trial. The reason for the strike was that British murderers and thieves were treated better than Indian political prisoners, who, by law, were meant to be given better rights. The aims in their strike were to ensure a decent standard of food for political prisoners, the availability of books and a daily newspaper, as well as better clothing and the supply of toiletry necessities and other hygienic necessities. He also demanded that political prisoners should not be forced to do any labour or undignified work
As the fast progressed without any solution in sight, Jawaharlal Nehru met Bhagat Singh and the other protesters. He said, "I was very much pained to see the distress of the heroes. They have staked their lives in this struggle. They want that political prisoners should be treated as political prisoners. I am quite hopeful that their sacrifice would be crowned with success
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, one of the politicians present when the Central Legislative Assembly was bombed, made no secret of his sympathies for the Lahore prisoners - commenting on the hunger strike he said, "The man who goes on hunger strike has a soul. He is moved by that soul, and he believes in the justice of his cause." And talking of Singh's actions, he said, "...however much you deplore them and however much you say they are misguided, it is the system, this damnable system of governance, which is resented by the people...".
The Government tried several tricks to break the strike. They placed dishes of different types in the cells of test the resolve of the strikers. Water pitchers were filled with milk so that either the prisoners remained thirsty or broke their strike. But nobody faltered. The authorities attempted forced-feeding, but were resisted. One of the prisoners, Kasuri, swallowed red pepper and drank hot water to clog the feeding tube. The Governor came down from Shimla to meet the jail authorities. There was no breakthrough.
When the Government realized that this fast had riveted the attention of the people throughout the country, it decided to hurry up the trial, which came to known as the Lahore Conspiracy Case. This trial started in Borstal Jail, Lahore, on 10 July 1929. Rai Sahib Pandit Sri Kishen, a first class magistrate, was the judge for this trial. Bhagat Singh and twenty-seven others were charged with murder, conspiracy and wagering war against the King. The revolutionaries’ strategy was to boycott the proceedings. They showed no interest in the trial and adopted an attitude of total indifference. A handcuffed Bhagat Singh, still on hunger strike, had to be brought to the court in a stretcher and his weight had fallen by 14 pounds, from 133 to 119. By then, the condition of Jatindra Nath Das, who was lodged in the same jail and was also on a hunger strike, had deteriorated considerably. The jail committee recommended his unconditional release, but the government rejected the suggestion and offered to release him on bail. Jatin died on September 13, 1929. His fast lasted 63 days. After his death, the Viceroy informed London
Jatin Das of the Conspiracy Case, who was on hunger strike, died this afternoon at 1 p.m. Last night, five of the huunger strikers gave up their hunger strike. So there are only Bhagat Singh and Dutt who are on strike ...
The highest tributes were paid by almost every leader in the country. Mohammad Alam and Gopi Chand Bhargava resigned from the Punjab Legislative Council in protest. Motilal Nehru proposed the adjournment of the Central Assembly as a censure against the inhumanity of the Lahore prisoners. The censure motion was carried by 55 votes against 47.
The Jail Committee requested him to give up his hunger strike and finally it was his father who had his way, armed with a resolution from the Congress party urging them to give up their strike; and it was on the 116th day of their fast, on October 5, 1929 that Bhagat Singh and Dutt gave up their strike (surpassing the 97 day world record for hunger strikes which was set by an Irish revolutionary). During this hunger strike that lasted 116 days and ended with the British succumbing to his wishes, he gained much popularity among the common Indians. Before the strike his popularity was limited mainly to the Punjab region.
Bhagat Singh started refocusing on his trial. The crown was represented by the government advocate C.H.Carden-Noad and was assisted by Kalandar Ali Khan, Gopal Lal, and Bakshi Dina Nath who was the prosecuting inspector. The accused were defended by 8 different lawyers. When Jai Gopal turned approver, Verma, the youngest of the accused, hurled a slipper at him. The case was ordered to be carried out without members of the HSRA present at the hearing. This created an uproar amongst Singh's supporters as he could no longer publicise his views.
The case proceeded at a snail's pace. On 1 May 1930, by declaring an emergency, the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, promulgated an Ordinance to set up a tribunal to try this case. This Special Tribunal was given the power to proceed with the case in the absence of the accused and accept death of the persons giving evidence as a benefit to the defence. The Ordinance, Lahore Conspiracy Case Ordinance No.3 of 1930, was to put an end to the proceedings pending in the magistrate’s court. The case was transferred from the court of Rai Sahib Pandit Sri Kishan to a Special Tribunal of three high court judges without any right to appeal, except to the Privy Council.
The case opened on 5 May 1930 in the stately Poonch House. Rajguru challenged the very constitution of the tribunal and said that it was illegal ultra vires. According to him, the Viceroy did not have the power to cut short the normal legal procedure. The Government of India Act, 1915, authorized the Viceroy to promulgate an Ordinance to set up a tribunal but only when the situation demanded whereas now there was no breakdown in the law and order situation. The tribunal however, ruled that the petition was ‘premature’. Carden-Noad, the government advocate elaborated on the charges which included dacoities, robbing money from banks and the collection of arms and ammunition. The evidence of G.T. Hamilton Harding, senior superintendent of police, took the court by surprise, as he said that he had filed the FIR against the accused under the instructions of the chief secretary to the government of Punjab and he did not know the facts of the case. There were five approvers in total out of which Jai Gopal, Hans Raj Vohra and P.N.Ghosh had been associated with the HRSA for a long time. It was on their stories that the prosecution relied. The tribunal depended on Section 9 (1) of the Ordinance and on 10 July 1930, issued an order, and copies of the framed charges were served on the fifteen accused in jail, together with copies of an order intimating them that their pleas would be taken on the charges the following day. This trial was a long and protracted one, beginning on 5 May 1930, and ending on 10 September 1930. The tribunal framed charges against fifteen out of the eighteen accused. The case against B.K.Dutt was withdrawn as he had already been sentenced to transportation for life in the Assembly Bomb Case.
On 7 October 1930, about three weeks before the expiry of its term, the tribunal delivered its judgement, sentencing Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru to death by hanging. Others were sentenced to transportation for life and rigorous imprisonment. This judgement was a 300-page one which went into the details of the evidence and said that Bhagat Singh’s participation in the Saunders’ murder was the most serious and important fact proved against him and it was fully established by evidence. The warrants for the three were marked with a black border.
The undertrials of the Chittagong Armoury Raid Case sent an appeal to Gandhiji to intervene. A defence committee was constituted in Punjab to file an appeal to the Privy Council against the sentence. Bhagat Singh did not favour the appeal but his only satisfaction was that the appeal would draw the attention of people in England to the existence of the HSRA. In the case of Bhagat Singh v. The King Emperor, the points raised by the appellant was that the ordinance promulgated to constitute a special tribunal for the trial was invalid. The government argued that Section 72 of the Government of India Act, 1915 gave the governor-general unlimited powers to set up a tribunal. Judge Viscount Dunedin who read the judgment dismissed the appeal. Thus from the lower court to the tribunal to the Privy Council, it was a preordained judgement in flagrant violation of all tenets of natural justice and a fair and free trial.
An abortive plan had been made to rescue Bhagat Singh and fellow inmates of HSRA from the jail, for the purpose of which Bhagwati Charan Vohra made bombs, but died making them as they exploded accidentally.
Bhagat Singh also maintained the use of a diary, in which he eventually wrote 404 pages. In this diary he made numerous notes relating to the quotations and popular sayings of various people whose views he supported. Prominent in his diary were the views of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The comments in his diary led to an understanding of the philosophical thinking of Bhagat Singh While in the condemned cell, he also wrote a pamphlet entitled "Why I am an atheist", as he was being accused of vanity by not accepting God in the face of death. It is also said that he signed a mercy petition through a comrade Bijoy Kumar Sinha on 8 March 1931
Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were sentenced to death in the Lahore conspiracy case and ordered to be hanged on March 24, 1931. On 23 March 1931 at 7:30 pm, Bhagat Singh was hanged in Lahore Jail with his fellow comrades Rajguru and Sukhdev. His supporters, who had been protesting against the hanging, immediately declared him as a shaheed or martyr. According to the Superintendent of Police at the time, V.N. Smith, the hanging was advanced by a day:
Normally execution took place at 8 am, but it was decided to act at once before the public could become aware of what had happened...At about 7 pm shouts of Inquilab Zindabad were heard from inside the jail. This was interpreted, correctly, as a signal that the final curtain was about to drop
The Jail authorities broke the rear wall of the Jail and secretly cremated the three martyrs under cover of darkness on the banks of Sutlej, about 10 km from Ferozepore.
The police had gathered ‘substantial evidence’ against Bhagat Singh and he was charged with involvement in the killings of Saunders and Head Constable Chanan Singh. The authorities had collected nearly 600 witnesses to establish their charges, which included his colleagues, Jai Gopal and Hans Raj Vohra turning government approvers. Singh was re-arrested for the murder of Saunders and the life imprisonment sentence was kept in abeyance till the outcome of the murder trial
Bhagat Singh was sent to Mianwali Jail and B. Dutt to Borstal Jail in Lahore. They were put on the same train, though in different compartments, on 12 March 1930 but after requesting the officer on duty to allow them to sit together for some distance of the journey, Bhagat Singh conveyed to Dutt that he should go on a hunger strike on 15 June and that he would do the same in Mianwali Jail. On reaching Mianwali jail, Bhagat Singh found that European prisoners got better accomodation, food and daily use items compared to Indian prisoners.
While in jail, Bhagat Singh and other prisoners launched a hunger strike advocating for the rights of prisoners and those facing trial. The reason for the strike was that British murderers and thieves were treated better than Indian political prisoners, who, by law, were meant to be given better rights. The aims in their strike were to ensure a decent standard of food for political prisoners, the availability of books and a daily newspaper, as well as better clothing and the supply of toiletry necessities and other hygienic necessities. He also demanded that political prisoners should not be forced to do any labour or undignified work
As the fast progressed without any solution in sight, Jawaharlal Nehru met Bhagat Singh and the other protesters. He said, "I was very much pained to see the distress of the heroes. They have staked their lives in this struggle. They want that political prisoners should be treated as political prisoners. I am quite hopeful that their sacrifice would be crowned with success
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, one of the politicians present when the Central Legislative Assembly was bombed, made no secret of his sympathies for the Lahore prisoners - commenting on the hunger strike he said, "The man who goes on hunger strike has a soul. He is moved by that soul, and he believes in the justice of his cause." And talking of Singh's actions, he said, "...however much you deplore them and however much you say they are misguided, it is the system, this damnable system of governance, which is resented by the people...".
The Government tried several tricks to break the strike. They placed dishes of different types in the cells of test the resolve of the strikers. Water pitchers were filled with milk so that either the prisoners remained thirsty or broke their strike. But nobody faltered. The authorities attempted forced-feeding, but were resisted. One of the prisoners, Kasuri, swallowed red pepper and drank hot water to clog the feeding tube. The Governor came down from Shimla to meet the jail authorities. There was no breakthrough.
When the Government realized that this fast had riveted the attention of the people throughout the country, it decided to hurry up the trial, which came to known as the Lahore Conspiracy Case. This trial started in Borstal Jail, Lahore, on 10 July 1929. Rai Sahib Pandit Sri Kishen, a first class magistrate, was the judge for this trial. Bhagat Singh and twenty-seven others were charged with murder, conspiracy and wagering war against the King. The revolutionaries’ strategy was to boycott the proceedings. They showed no interest in the trial and adopted an attitude of total indifference. A handcuffed Bhagat Singh, still on hunger strike, had to be brought to the court in a stretcher and his weight had fallen by 14 pounds, from 133 to 119. By then, the condition of Jatindra Nath Das, who was lodged in the same jail and was also on a hunger strike, had deteriorated considerably. The jail committee recommended his unconditional release, but the government rejected the suggestion and offered to release him on bail. Jatin died on September 13, 1929. His fast lasted 63 days. After his death, the Viceroy informed London
Jatin Das of the Conspiracy Case, who was on hunger strike, died this afternoon at 1 p.m. Last night, five of the huunger strikers gave up their hunger strike. So there are only Bhagat Singh and Dutt who are on strike ...
The highest tributes were paid by almost every leader in the country. Mohammad Alam and Gopi Chand Bhargava resigned from the Punjab Legislative Council in protest. Motilal Nehru proposed the adjournment of the Central Assembly as a censure against the inhumanity of the Lahore prisoners. The censure motion was carried by 55 votes against 47.
The Jail Committee requested him to give up his hunger strike and finally it was his father who had his way, armed with a resolution from the Congress party urging them to give up their strike; and it was on the 116th day of their fast, on October 5, 1929 that Bhagat Singh and Dutt gave up their strike (surpassing the 97 day world record for hunger strikes which was set by an Irish revolutionary). During this hunger strike that lasted 116 days and ended with the British succumbing to his wishes, he gained much popularity among the common Indians. Before the strike his popularity was limited mainly to the Punjab region.
Bhagat Singh started refocusing on his trial. The crown was represented by the government advocate C.H.Carden-Noad and was assisted by Kalandar Ali Khan, Gopal Lal, and Bakshi Dina Nath who was the prosecuting inspector. The accused were defended by 8 different lawyers. When Jai Gopal turned approver, Verma, the youngest of the accused, hurled a slipper at him. The case was ordered to be carried out without members of the HSRA present at the hearing. This created an uproar amongst Singh's supporters as he could no longer publicise his views.
The case proceeded at a snail's pace. On 1 May 1930, by declaring an emergency, the Viceroy, Lord Irwin, promulgated an Ordinance to set up a tribunal to try this case. This Special Tribunal was given the power to proceed with the case in the absence of the accused and accept death of the persons giving evidence as a benefit to the defence. The Ordinance, Lahore Conspiracy Case Ordinance No.3 of 1930, was to put an end to the proceedings pending in the magistrate’s court. The case was transferred from the court of Rai Sahib Pandit Sri Kishan to a Special Tribunal of three high court judges without any right to appeal, except to the Privy Council.
The case opened on 5 May 1930 in the stately Poonch House. Rajguru challenged the very constitution of the tribunal and said that it was illegal ultra vires. According to him, the Viceroy did not have the power to cut short the normal legal procedure. The Government of India Act, 1915, authorized the Viceroy to promulgate an Ordinance to set up a tribunal but only when the situation demanded whereas now there was no breakdown in the law and order situation. The tribunal however, ruled that the petition was ‘premature’. Carden-Noad, the government advocate elaborated on the charges which included dacoities, robbing money from banks and the collection of arms and ammunition. The evidence of G.T. Hamilton Harding, senior superintendent of police, took the court by surprise, as he said that he had filed the FIR against the accused under the instructions of the chief secretary to the government of Punjab and he did not know the facts of the case. There were five approvers in total out of which Jai Gopal, Hans Raj Vohra and P.N.Ghosh had been associated with the HRSA for a long time. It was on their stories that the prosecution relied. The tribunal depended on Section 9 (1) of the Ordinance and on 10 July 1930, issued an order, and copies of the framed charges were served on the fifteen accused in jail, together with copies of an order intimating them that their pleas would be taken on the charges the following day. This trial was a long and protracted one, beginning on 5 May 1930, and ending on 10 September 1930. The tribunal framed charges against fifteen out of the eighteen accused. The case against B.K.Dutt was withdrawn as he had already been sentenced to transportation for life in the Assembly Bomb Case.
On 7 October 1930, about three weeks before the expiry of its term, the tribunal delivered its judgement, sentencing Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru to death by hanging. Others were sentenced to transportation for life and rigorous imprisonment. This judgement was a 300-page one which went into the details of the evidence and said that Bhagat Singh’s participation in the Saunders’ murder was the most serious and important fact proved against him and it was fully established by evidence. The warrants for the three were marked with a black border.
The undertrials of the Chittagong Armoury Raid Case sent an appeal to Gandhiji to intervene. A defence committee was constituted in Punjab to file an appeal to the Privy Council against the sentence. Bhagat Singh did not favour the appeal but his only satisfaction was that the appeal would draw the attention of people in England to the existence of the HSRA. In the case of Bhagat Singh v. The King Emperor, the points raised by the appellant was that the ordinance promulgated to constitute a special tribunal for the trial was invalid. The government argued that Section 72 of the Government of India Act, 1915 gave the governor-general unlimited powers to set up a tribunal. Judge Viscount Dunedin who read the judgment dismissed the appeal. Thus from the lower court to the tribunal to the Privy Council, it was a preordained judgement in flagrant violation of all tenets of natural justice and a fair and free trial.
An abortive plan had been made to rescue Bhagat Singh and fellow inmates of HSRA from the jail, for the purpose of which Bhagwati Charan Vohra made bombs, but died making them as they exploded accidentally.
Bhagat Singh also maintained the use of a diary, in which he eventually wrote 404 pages. In this diary he made numerous notes relating to the quotations and popular sayings of various people whose views he supported. Prominent in his diary were the views of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The comments in his diary led to an understanding of the philosophical thinking of Bhagat Singh While in the condemned cell, he also wrote a pamphlet entitled "Why I am an atheist", as he was being accused of vanity by not accepting God in the face of death. It is also said that he signed a mercy petition through a comrade Bijoy Kumar Sinha on 8 March 1931
Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were sentenced to death in the Lahore conspiracy case and ordered to be hanged on March 24, 1931. On 23 March 1931 at 7:30 pm, Bhagat Singh was hanged in Lahore Jail with his fellow comrades Rajguru and Sukhdev. His supporters, who had been protesting against the hanging, immediately declared him as a shaheed or martyr. According to the Superintendent of Police at the time, V.N. Smith, the hanging was advanced by a day:
Normally execution took place at 8 am, but it was decided to act at once before the public could become aware of what had happened...At about 7 pm shouts of Inquilab Zindabad were heard from inside the jail. This was interpreted, correctly, as a signal that the final curtain was about to drop
The Jail authorities broke the rear wall of the Jail and secretly cremated the three martyrs under cover of darkness on the banks of Sutlej, about 10 km from Ferozepore.