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were armed with regulation lathis; an Assistant Superintendent of Police was on horseback. There was really no occasion for all this demonstration of force. It was unnecessary and inexplicable except in the light of what followed.

We were allowed to pass unmolested. It was when the younger delegates, the members of the Anti-Circular Society, emerged from the haveli into the public street that the whole programme of the police was developed, and the attack was begun. They were struck with regulation lathis (fairly thick sticks, six feet long); the Bande-Mataram badges that they wore were torn off. Some of them were badly hurt, and one of them, Chittaranjan Guha, son of Babu Monoranjan Guha, a well-known Swadeshi worker and speaker, who afterwards was deported, was thrown into a tank full of water, in which, if he had not been rescued, he would probably have found a watery grave.

These young men had done nothing; they had not even before the assault uttered what to the Government of East Bengal was an obnoxious cry, that of Bande-Mataram. The head and front of their offence was that they were going along the public streets in a procession, causing no inconvenience or obstruction to any- body. It was after they had been attacked that they lustily shouted Bande-Mataram, and the air re-echoed with the cry. It was difficult to conceive a more wanton and unprovoked assault. The pro- cessionists, if they had committed any offence, might have been arrested; and the procession itself might have been broken up if it was thought desirable; but that did not suit the authorities, and I have no hesitation in saying, and it was the verdict of contem- porary opinion, that a preconceived plan had been arranged, which was a part of the policy of terrorism that was being systematically followed in East Bengal, in the hope that the agitation against the Partition would be crushed out of existence. It was a vain hope. Repression failed here, as it has failed wherever it has been tried. It served only to strengthen the popular forces and to deepen the popular determination.

While all this was going on, we were marching ahead in blissful ignorance of the unholy activities of the police. Mr. Lalitmohan Ghosal, one of the delegates from Calcutta, came running up to us with outstretched hands, saying, 'What are you doing? You cannot proceed. Your brother-delegates behind are being beaten by the police.' I turned back at once, followed by Babu Motilal Ghose and one or two others. As I was coming along, I met