Chaki, Prafulla

Chaki, Prafulla (1888-1908) a revolutionary and a nationalist. Son of Rajnarayan and Swarnamoyee, Prafulla Chaki belonged to a middle class Hindu Kayastha family and was born on 10 December 1888 at Bihar village of Bogra district. His father, an employee of the Bogra nawab family, died when Chaki was only an infant. Brought up by his mother, Prafulla Chaki had his primary education in the village school and in 1904 got himself admitted into Rangpur Zilla School. There he joined the “Bandhab Samiti”, a local organisation for physical exercise and socio-cultural activities. While a student of class IX, Chaki was expelled from the school for taking part in the students' demonstrations violating the Carlisle Circular of the government of East Bengal and Assam. He then joined the Rangpur National School and came in contact with revolutionary activists like Jitendranarayan Roy, Abinash Chakravarti, Ishan Chandra Chakravarti and became a revolutionary convert.

At this juncture barindrakumar ghosh, one of the founders of the jugantar group of revolutionaries, visited Rangpur. Prafulla Chaki was introduced to Barin Ghosh, who brought him to Calcutta. bamfylde fuller, the lieutenant governor of East Bengal and Assam, was a target of the revolutionaries. Barin Ghosh planned to gun him down at Darjeeling when he would be on a visit there and Chaki was entrusted with the job. But the tour programme was changed and hence the plan did not materialise.

In 1908 Jugantar members decided to kill Kingsford, the Calcutta Presidency Magistrate. Chaki was assigned the task along with kshudiram basu, another young revolutionary. Kingsford had meanwhile been transferred to Muzaffarpur as Sessions Judge. Prafulla and Kshudiram watched his movements very closely at Muzaffarpur. In the evening of 30 April 1908 they were waiting for his carriage in front of the European Club gate. They blew up a vehicle but it was not the one in which Kingsford was travelling. By mistake they killed Mrs and Ms Kennedy.

Prafulla and Kshudiram took separate routes to escape. Next morning, Nandalal Banerjee, a Sub-Inspector of Police, suspected Prafulla at the Samastipur Railway station and was about to seize him. Prafulla Chaki was firm not to give in and committed suicide shooting twice in the head with his own revolver. [Md. Muktadir Arif Mozammel]