On this day, 17 December 1927, Indian revolutionaries Bhagat Singh and Shivaram Rajguru assassinated British colonial police assistant superintendent John Saunders. The original target of the attempt was the superintendent, who was responsible for a violent attack by police on protesters which led to the death of independence activist Lala Lajpat Rai.
After the killing, the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association, of which Singh and Rajguru were members, put up posters declaring: “Today the world has seen that the people of India are not lifeless; their blood has not become cold. They can lay down their lives for the country’s honour… We are sorry to have killed a man. But this man was a part of [a] cruel, despicable and unjust system and killing him was a necessity… This Government is the most oppressive government in the world.”
Singh, Rajguru and their co-conspirator, Sukhdev Thapar, were later arrested for the killing, tried and executed.
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