Bhagat Singh's 119th Birth Anniversary: Remembering the Revolutionary's Life, Struggle and Legacy

Key facts

• Bhagat Singh was born on September 28, 1907, in Banga village near Lyallpur, now in Pakistan, into a family involved in the freedom struggle.
• In 1928, following Lala Lajpat Rai's death after a police lathi charge against the Simon Commission protest, British police officer J.P. Saunders was killed in Lahore in retaliation.
• On April 8, 1929, Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt threw bombs in the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi, raised the slogan 'Inquilab Zindabad' and allowed themselves to be arrested.
• During a hunger strike for political prisoners' rights, revolutionary Jatin Das died on September 13, 1929, after a 63-day fast.
• Bhagat Singh wrote the essay 'Why I Am an Atheist' while in jail and was reading about Lenin before his execution.
• Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were executed at Lahore jail on March 23, 1931, and cremated near Hussainiwala on the banks of the Sutlej; Bhagat Singh was 23 years old.