Dr Bindeshwar Pathak, Sulabh International’s founder grants Rs 200,000/- for marriage of Priyanka. Former Maharashtra Chief Justice Dharmadhikari hails efforts of a scribe-couple, ask people to follow..
It was on August 9, 1925. The 8Dn train travelling from Saharanpur to Lucknow was approaching Kakori town (between Alamnagar and Kakori) near Uttar Pradesh, when one of the revolutionaries pulled the chain to stop the train and over-powered the guard. The train was carrying the money-bags belonging to the British government treasury in the guard’s cabin.
Altogether 40 persons were arrested in this historic case. Despite protests by the defence committee, chaired by Govind Ballabh Pant, four revolutionaries – Ram Prasad Bismil, Ashfaqullah Khan, Rajendra Lahiri and Roshan Singh – were sentenced to death by the court. Bismil was hanged on December 19, 1927 at Gorakhpur jail while Ashfaqullah Khan, Roshan Singh and Rajendra Lahiri at the Faizabad, Naini (Allahabad) and Gonda jails respectively.
Almost 86-year later, the one and only bloodline of Martyr Bismil, Mr Bijendra Singh Tomar, was forced to work as a “labourer” at the ancestral village in Murena district of Madhya Pradesh to protect his 55-year old wife Mrs Munni Devi, 22-year son Sonu and 20-year-old marriageable daughter Ms Priyanka. Not only that, more than 70-bigha of lands that were allotted to Bismil’s family by the government of India in 1947, were grabbed by the white collar politicians, policemen and the local goons on various “flimsy ground”.
But his fate took a U-turn on June 24, 2013 at a function chaired by a noted Gandhian and the former Chief Justice of Maharashtra High Court Justice Chandra Shekhar Dharmadhikari and chairman-cum-managing director of General Insurance Corporation (GIC-Re) Mr Ashok K Roy, when Founder of Sulabh International Dr Bindeshwar Pathak granted Rs 200,000/- for the marriage of Bijendra Singh Tomar’s daughter Ms Priyanka.
‘We have the example of Chapekar brothers of Pune, where all three brothers were killed by the Britishers. Nobody knows what their families are doing for a survival,’ says Jha.