Tarapur Massacre:
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said February 15 would henceforth be commemorated as “Shahid Diwas” in memory of the 34 freedom fighters who were killed by police in Tarapur town (now subdivision) of Bihar’s Munger district 90 years ago.
- The freedom fighters had never got their due, the Chief Minister said, even though the Tarapur massacre was the biggest carried out by the British police after the one in Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar in 1919.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi had referred to the Tarapur massacre in his Mann ki Baat radio address of January 2021.
- On February 15, 1932, a group of young freedom fighters planned to hoist an Indian national flag at Thana Bhavan in Tarapur. Police were aware of the plan, and several officers were present at the spot.
- Around 2 pm, even as the police carried out a brutal lathicharge, one Gopal Singh succeeded in raising the flag at Thana Bhavan. A 4,000-strong crowd pelted the police with stones, injuring an officer of the civil administration.
- The police responded by opening indiscriminate fire on the crowd. After about 75 rounds were fired, 34 bodies were found at the spot, even though there were claims of an even larger number of deaths.
