Surya Sen Image

Surya Sen, also known as Surjya Sen, was born on March 22, 1894, in Noapara, Chittagong, present-day Bangladesh. Inspired by his teachers, Surya Sen joined the ‘Anushilan Samiti’, a revolutionary organization in Bengal, and became close to Chittaranjan Das. He participated in Mahatma Gandhi’s non-cooperation movement, but was disheartened when it was called off after the Chauri Chaura incident. Sen then worked as a mathematics teacher in Chittagong, earning the nickname Masterda.

A master planner and organizer, Surya Sen, with the help of Ganesh Ghosh, Lokenath Bal, and Ananta Singh, formed a small army of young revolutionaries under the Indian Republican Army. He devised a plan to cut off Chittagong from the rest of the country to achieve freedom. On the night of April 18, 1930, they raided the police armory in Chittagong. Another group captured the armory of Auxiliary forces, and they cut off telephone, telegram, and railway lines to delay any external assistance. Sen hoisted the Indian flag on the premises of the police armory and established a provisional government.

The British retaliated, and after exhausting their ammunition, the revolutionaries had to flee. Sen went into hiding and was supported by locals, but he was eventually betrayed and arrested on February 16, 1933. He was brutally tortured by the police in jail, with his limbs broken. Surya Sen was finally hanged on January 12, 1934, in Chittagong Central Jail, and his body was dumped in the ocean.

Trivia : There is a metro station in the Kolkata metro named after Masterda Surya Sen.

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