Alipore Bomb Case AKA Emperor vs Aurobindo Ghosh and others

Sep 12, 2021 - 06:41
 0

Emperor vs Aurobindo Ghosh and others, colloquially referred to as the Alipore Bomb Case, the Muraripukur conspiracy, or the Manicktolla bomb conspiracy, was a criminal case held in India in 1908.

The case saw the trial of a number of Indian nationalists of the Anushilan Samiti in Calcutta, under charges of "Waging war against the Government" of the British Raj. The trial was held at Alipore Sessions Court, Calcutta, between May 1908 and May 1909. The trial followed in the wake of the attempt on the life of Presidency Magistrate Douglas Kingsford in Muzaffarpur by Bengali nationalists Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki in April 1908, which was recognised by the Bengal police as linked to attacks against the Raj in the preceding years, including attempts to derail the train carrying Lieutenant-Governor Sir Andrew Fraser in December 1907.

Among the famous accused were Aurobindo Ghosh, his brother Barin Ghosh as well as 38 other Bengali nationalists of the Anushilan Samiti. Most of the accused were arrested from Barin Ghosh's Garden house at 36 Murarirupukur Road, in the Manicktolla suburb of Calcutta.

They were held in the Presidency Jail in Alipore before the trial, where Narendranath Goswami, approver and crown-witness, was shot dead by two fellow accused Kanailal Dutta and Satyendranath Bose within the jail premises. Goswami's murder led to the collapse of the case against Aurobindo.

However, his brother Barin and a number of others were convicted of the charges and faced varying jail terms from life imprisonment to shorter jail terms.

Aurobindo Ghosh retired from active nationalist politics after serving a prison sentence awarded in the trial, beginning his journey into spirituality and philosophy that he described as having started with revelations that occurred to him during his incarceration.

He later moved to Pondicherry, establishing an Ashram. For Anushilan Samiti, the incarceration of many of its prominent leaders led to a decline in the influence and activity of the Manicktolla branch, and its activities were overtaken by what emerged to be called the Jugantar branch under the leadership of Bagha Jatin.

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