Shahjahanpur (UP), Aug 9 (PTI) Descendants of freedom fighters who executed the Kakori train robbery want the authorities to take steps so that the young generation does not forget them.

Shahjahanpur was home to many of those involved in the robbery carried out by revolutionaries on this day in 1925 to fund their movement. In Uttar Pradesh, the event is commemorated through Kakori Action Day.

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Vikas Khurana, Head of the Department of History, Swami Shukdevanand Postgraduate College, told PTI that after the Chauri Chaura incident in 1922, Pandit Ram Prasad Bismil along with Bengal's revolutionary leader Sachindra Sanyal formed the Hindustan Republican Association (HRA).

Khurana said that in the aftermath of the Kakori incident, the British arrested 40 people who were made accused in which 10 were given jail terms and four revolutionaries -- Ashfaqullah Khan, Ram Prasad Bismil, Roshan Singh and Rajendranath Lahiri -- were hanged in 1927.

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The descendants of these revolutionaries rue that in the absence of information in form of memorial, museums and by removing their names from textbooks, the young generation is forgetting about the martyrs.

Ashfaqullah Khan, great-grandson of Ashfaqullah Khan, said he was given the name of his great grandfather according to the revolutionary's wish.

He alleged that the government is forgetting those who sacrificed their lives for the country. "The names of Ashfaqullah Khan, Roshan Singh and others who were part of the Kakori incident have been removed from recent history textbooks taught in government schools," he claimed.

Jitendra Prasad Singh, the great-grandson of Roshan Singh, who lives in Nawada Darovkht village, said the "martyr family does not get any facility like pension from the government".

He said a "small memorial" has been built in the village in the name of his grandfather and they go to clean it. "The village was made an ideal village and it was adopted by former Union minister Krishna Raj, but it has been abandoned like an orphan," Jitendra Prasad Singh said alleging that no major development work has been done their village.

Arya Samaj chief in Shahjahanpur, Rajeev Shukla, said, "There is a room named after Ram Prasad Bismil in the temple of Arya Samaj built in Sadar Bazar area, in which Bismil used to make his strategies with other revolutionaries. A plaque with the names of these revolutionaries has been placed on the same room and plans are being discussed to develop this building into a museum."

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)