Kolkata: Legendary revolutionary Binod Bihari Chowdhury, the sole surviving raider of the Chittagong armoury in 1930, an event that shook the British Raj, has passed away, his family said yesterday. He was 103.
Chowdhury died on Wednesday night in a Kolkata hospital following multiple organ failure, grandson Soumya Surva said.
Chowdhury also took part in the Bengali language movement in 1952 besides playing a key role in planning the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war.
The widower leaves behind his grandson and a daughter-in-law. Both his sons predeceased him.
He will be cremated today in Bangladesh.
Chowdhury was a member of the Indian Republican Army, which raided the Chittagong armoury on April 18, 1930, and proclaimed independence by setting up a provisional revolutionary government before the British crushed the uprising.
After most of his comrades were arrested or killed, Chowdhury gave himself up before British police in 1934. He was released in 1938 and joined the Congress and rose to become a member of its Bengal provincial committee. He remained in then East Pakistan after the partition of the subcontinent. He received Bangladesh’s highest civilian award, Swadhinata padak, in 2000.
IANS
