Ashfaqulla Khan – Freedom Fighter of India

Born on the 22^nd of October in the year 1900, Ashfaqulla Khan was a significant freedom fighter during India’s struggle to attain independence, and was the first person who was hanged till death on charges of conspiracy against the British government.

A prominent member of the Hindustan Republican Association, Khan was extremely fond of Urdu poetry and would often pen down a number of Urdu poems along with his close friend Ram Prasad Bismil. Born and raised in Shahjahanpur in the state of Uttar Pradesh, Khan’s interest in being a part of independence movement came to surface when the non cooperation civil disobedience movement was withdrawn by Gandhi, right after the Chauri-Chaura incident.

This led Khan to join a group of revolutionaries in Shahjahanpur and also become a companion of Bismil, who was quite famous as a part of the Shahjahanpur revolutionary. In the conspiracy case filed against Khan by the British, he was arrested and given a death sentence.

He readily accepted the punishment, although on his day of getting hanged, he kissed the noose and said that he committed no murder of man, and that god was there to give him justice. He thus passed away on the 19^th of December, 1927, at the mere age of 27.