Prafulla Chandra Chaki was a Bengali activist. He was associated with the Jugantar group of revolutionaries and carried out assassination against the British officials. He had played a rebellious role during the fight of Indian independence.
Early Life of Prafulla Chaki
Prafulla Chaki was born on 10th December during the year 1888 to father Rajnarayan and mother Swarnamoyee at a village named Bihar at Bogra district which is located in the present day Bangladesh. It was a part of the Bengal Presidency earlier. His father died when he was an infant and thus he was brought up by his mother. He had attended education from Rangur Zilla School. He was expelled from the school during 9th standard because of participation in a demonstration of students which violated the laws of East Bengal. Later to that, he had joined Rangpur National School. There he has come in contact with the revolutionaries that led him to become a practitioner and believer of the philosophies of revolutionary movement. This is where the journey of Chakki as a rebellious revolutionist had begun.
Revolutionary activities of Prafulla Chaki
Prafulla Chaki had come to Kolkata with Barin Ghosh. He got himself enlisted within the Jugantar Party after that. The first assignment that was given to Chaki was assassinating Sir Joseph Bampfylde who was the first lieutenant Governor of the new provinces of Assam and the Eastern Bengal. The act did not succeed.
Later to that, Chaki was chosen along with another revolutionist, Khudiram Bose for carrying forward another assassination of Kingsford who was the then magistrate of Bihar. During the previous tenure of Kingsford as the Chief Presidency Magistrate of Calcutta, he was popular for passing cruel and harsh sentences over the young political workers of Bengal. He also came into notice for inflicting cruel corporal punishments on those workers. All these activities led to the planning of his murder. Bose and Chaki were selected for the assassination and were sent to Muzaffarpur for executing the task. In this operation, Chaki had disguised himself with the fake name of Dinesh Chandra Roy.
The duo had observed the usual movements and daily whereabouts of Kingsford and had strategized a plan. On 30th April in the year of 1908, the duo waited during the evening at front gate of the European club for the carriage of Kingsford to arrive. When a vehicle arrived, a bomb was delivered into the carriage. However, it was mistake on the attacker"s part to identify Kingsford. The vehicle did not carry Kingsford but his wife and the daughter of a leading pleader of Muzaffarpur, Mr. Pringle Kennedy. The daughter had died on the spot and his wife had succumbed to her injuries. The revolutionaries managed to flee from the area.
Suicide of Prafulla Chaki
After the Muzaffarpur attack, Bose and Chaki had separated their routes for escape. Chaki has reached Samastipur where he decided to take shelter provided by a member of the railway staff who goes by the name Triguna Charan Ghosh. The later had also provided an inter-class ticker of night train to Mokama. However, Nandalal Banerjee, a police officer in the same train compartment has suspected Chaki and made an attempt to get him arrested at the Mokama station platform but the suspect had committed suicide with his own revolver. His head was severed from his body and sent to Kolkata for clarification by Bose who was captured. He was also arrested and hanged to death. Later on, the police inspector Nandalal Banerjee was assassinated by another two young revolutionaries Ranen Ganguly and Srishh Paul.
