The Hindu : Miscellaneous / This Day That Age : dated March 14, 1955: The Nagpur incident

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Monday, Mar 14, 2005

Miscellaneous

Miscellaneous - This Day That Age

dated March 14, 1955: The Nagpur incident

The Home Minister, Pandit Pant, made a reference in the Lok Sabha on March 12 to the incident at Nagpur when Prime Minister Nehru was going to that city from the airport. All sections of the House cheered when Pandit Pant asked the House to join him in "thanking Providence and wishing that our beloved Prime Minister be spared for many many years to lead the country to its destined goal." He read out the text of the communiqué issued by the Madhya Pradesh Government and said he had to inform the members about the deplorable incident which occurred during the Prime Minister's visit to Nagpur. Pandit Pant said, "Mr. Nehru is cheerful, in the best spirits and following his heavy programme at Nagpur as usual. He does not seem to attach any significance to this incident.''

At Nagpur, later in the day, in his address to the plenary session of the Bharat Sevak Samaj Convention, Mr. Nehru asked the public not to take serious note of the incident. "We should not imagine big things behind this and magnify. I would request you to remove this matter from your minds and not to worry." Mr. Nehru said he had already started receiving telegrams and telephone calls from all over the country. "Perhaps, the man was a lunatic, we should not exaggerate the incident." Mr. Nehru once again emphasised that the security arrangements were very good on this occasion although he had never liked them, as they raised a barrier between him and the public.

The communiqué issued by the Inspector-General of the Madhya Pradesh police soon after the incident said: "An incident occurred on a road crossing at 11-45 a.m. on March 12 when the Prime Minister was going from Sonegaon airport to Nagpur. He was travelling in an open car with the Governor and Chief Minister on either side of him. He was standing in the car. There was a big crowd on either side of the road. A rickshaw-puller pushed his rickshaw in front of the car, which resulted in the car stopping. The rickshaw-puller advanced towards the car and jumped on the footboard. He had a knife in his hand. He was immediately overpowered by the Military Secretary to the Governor and some police officers. The rickshaw-puller, who was arrested, gave his name as Babu Rao. He told the police that he did not wish to end the life of the Prime Minister. All that he wanted to do was to force an interview on the Prime Minister and explain to him that no justice was being done under the present Government. His grouse was that he was falsely implicated in a riot case. Babu Rao was later produced before a First Class Magistrate, who remanded him to police custody for 15 days.''

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