Asfaqullah Khan was born on 22 Oct 1900 in a military background family in Shahjahanpur. He have a great influence on poetry and the bravery of Ram Prasad Bismil. When Bismil was declared absconder after the Manipuri conspiracy, Ashfaq was very keen to meet Bismil because of his poetic and revolutionary attitude.
Bismil visited Shahjahanpur in 1922 to organize a meeting to tell people about the non-cooperation movement, here Ashfaq met Bismil in a private meeting and became friends thereafter.
Ashfaq was very critical to the rollback of non-cooperation by the congress leaders and joined the revolutionaries and united the scattered revolutionaries throughout the country.
The revolutionaries felt that the soft word of non-violence could not win India it’s freedom and planned to wage war against the British establishment by guns, barood and weapons.
What Ram Prasad Bismil wrote about Ashfaqullah Khan before hanging
To fund their movement and buy arms and ammunition, the revolutionaries organized a meeting on 8th August 1925 and decided to loot the government treasury in Shahjahanpur-lucknow passenger train the next day.
Asfaqullah Khan and his companions were charged with multiple offences including robbery and murder during the Kakori trial.
The loot had been carried out by 10 revolutionaries, many others were also arrested and handed out punishments as life imprisonment and long-term prisons. Four were handed death sentences including Ashfaq and Bismil.
Ram Prasad Bismil belonged to Arya Samaj and Asfaqullah Khan was a practicing Muslim who offer 5 times Namaaz daily.
Despite the difference of faith they never bore in mind any prejudice against each other religion and strive for common objective of free and independent India.
