Assam to restore, preserve house of 1942 martyr Kushal Konwar

“Our government will restore and preserve the house of the great martyr Kushal Konwar who had showed exemplary patriotism during the freedom struggle. His was a story much different from most others who had attained martyrdom for the same cause. Kushal Konwar had chosen to go the gallows by taking responsibility of those who had actually derailed the military train,” Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said here on Wednesday.

Paying rich tributes to the martyr, Sonowal recalled the sacrifices made by thousands of people who took part in the freedom movement in Assam, and said the new generation as well as people in the rest of the country need to be told about the stories particularly of those who laid down their lives.

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“While Kushal Konwar’s sacrifice and martyrdom was a different kind of story, the new generation as well as people across the country should also be told the stories of other martyrs like Kanaklata, Bhogeswari Phukanani and many others. These will inspire people to work for the country,” Sonowal, who laid a wreath at the Kushal Konwar statue here on the 63rd anniversary of his martyrdom, said.

Kushal Konwar is said to be the only martyr of the Quit India phase of the freedom movement who was hanged (unlike most others who had fallen to bullets of the British police). Then secretary of the local Congress unit, Konwar took the responsibility on his shoulder of an incident in which a group of local youth had removed the sleepers of the railway track near Sarupathar in present-day Golaghat district in Assam, thus causing derailment of a special train moving soldiers to upper Assam during the World War II. While he was held guilty and given a death sentence without any concrete proof of his involvement in the incident, Konwar was hanged in the Jorhat Jail on June 15, 1943.