Bihar Archives to soon publish docs, lit banned by British Raj

Rare documents and images, including a graphic depiction of the hanging of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev are now being published in three huge volumes

Rare documents and images, including a graphic depiction of the hanging of Bhagat Singh and his two aides Rajguru and Sukhdev, which were banned during the colonial era, are now being published in three huge volumes.

Titled, Teen Shaheed (three martyrs), the lithographed image published in Calcutta (now Kolkata) also depicts a cell filled with revolutionaries behind them and on the right side shows a ship full of people being transported to Kala Pani'(Cellular Jail in Andaman Islands) while Lord Krishna is shown on the top in a halo, showering blessings.

It was banned and seized by the British government after the trio were hanged in Lahore in 1931.

This graphic depiction of the hanging of the trio, captioned with the famous couplet Rang de basanti chola... was found in the Bihar State Archives (BSA), buried among some of the rare documents that were proscribed across the country during the colonial era.