Sacrifice of those who fought Razakars won't go in vain: Shah

Seeking to reach out to the people of Telangana, BJP chief Amit Shah today said the party won't let go in vain the sacrifice of those who fought against the powerful Razakar militia of the Nizam of Hyderabad and fulfil their dreams of a poverty-free land.
"There is a permanent place in the heart and mind of the BJP for the Telugu martyrs who fought against the Razakars," he said.
Shah was speaking at the BJP's booth-level activists meeting organised in Nalgonda's Gundrampalli village on the third and the final day of his visit to Telangana.
More than 160 people were killed by the Razakars, a band of violent supporters of the Nizam - the erstwhile ruler of the princely state of Hyderabad, at Gundrampalli village, he said.

Shah remembered an aphorism in Telugu that a 'bastha pusthelu' (a gunny bag full of mangalsutras) was found in the village which signified that a large number of women became widows after their husbands were killed by the Razakars.
The state is a part of India because of the sacrifice made by the people of Telangana, Karnataka and Maharashtra and the stellar role played by Sardar Patel, he said.

The Hyderabad state included parts of the present day Karnataka and Maharashtra.
Shah said the BJP would continue to fight for the honour of martyrs of the Razakar violence "for 100 years and many years beyond that".

The BJP chief said he visited Telangana as part of his nationwide 'Vistarak Yojana' and that he wanted it to become a stronghold of the party.
When independence came in 1947, nearly all of princely states agreed to become part of India. But Hyderabad's Nizam did not join in.
The peasants of Telangana waged an armed struggle to liberate the region. Scores of people lost their lives in it. The Razakars under the leadership of Qasim Razwi unleashed terror in the state by resorting to looting and killings, as per information available on the website of the Telangana government.
On 17 September 1948, the Indian government conducted a military operation, called Operation Polo, to merge Hyderabad state into the Indian Union.

It appointed a civil servant, M K Vellodi, as the first chief minister of Hyderabad on January 26, 1950.