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Ashfaqulla Khan
अशफ़ाक़ुल्ला ख़ान
The revolutionary poet of the Kakori conspiracy
Years
1900 – 1927
Known as
Comrade of the Kakori revolutionaries
Birthplace
Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh
Field
Freedom Fighters
“A patriot's blood is the price of the motherland's freedom.”
— Ashfaqulla Khan
The Story
Born in a respectable family of Shahjahanpur, Ashfaqulla was a talented Urdu poet and wrestler who joined the revolutionary movement in his teens. When the Hindustan Republican Association was formed, he was among its earliest members — and when the plan for the Kakori train robbery was made, he was one of its daring executants.
On 9 August 1925, he took part in the robbery of the government treasury from the Kakori mail train. Hunted across Bhārat, he escaped to Bihar and then Nepal, but was betrayed and arrested in 1926. Tried in the great Kakori case, he was sentenced to death.
When he was told he could petition for mercy, he refused: he said he had done his duty and would accept his fate. He was hanged on 19 December 1927 in Faizabad jail — the same day, by grim symmetry, as his comrade Bismil — and his last words were of the unity of his countrymen and the freedom to come.
Core Ideas
The Kakori Raid
A key figure of the 1925 train robbery.
The Poet
An Urdu poet who wrote of freedom and sacrifice.
The Refusal to Beg
He rejected the mercy petition to the end.
Unity in Martyrdom
Hanged beside his Hindu comrades in 1927.
The Symbol of Unity
His name proves the struggle belonged to all faiths.
Why it matters today
Ashfaqulla Khan is honoured with the Ashfaq Ulla Khan Memorial in Shahjahanpur and remembered every year at the Kakori martyrs' celebrations. His life is the eternal answer to anyone who divides Bhārat's freedom struggle by religion.