with the task of carrying out the killing. On April , they mistakenly threw a bomb on a carriage, that, instead of killing Kingsford, killed two English women. Prafulla Chaki committed suicide and Khudiram Bose was arrested and hanged for the murder. Aurobindo Ghose, along with his brother Barinder Kumar Ghose and thirty-five other comrades, were arrested.
Chittaranjan Das took up the case. It came to be known as the Alipore Bomb case. The judgement observed that there was no evidence to show that Aurobindo Ghose was involved in any conspiracy against the British rule. Ghose was acquitted of all the charges.
Barindra Ghose and Ullaskar Dutt were given the death penalty (later commuted to the transportation of life), with the rest being condemned to transportation for life. The year-long hearing of Alipore Bomb case made a great impact and portrayed the nationalist revolutionaries as heroes to the general public. Trial and the Aftermath After his acquittal, Aurobindo Ghose took to a spiritual path and shifted his base to Pondicherry, where he stayed until his death in . The idea of bringing an armed revolution, envisaged by Aurobindo Ghose, never materialized.
The reason for the gradual decline in the revolutionary activities in Bengal was a combination of government repression and alienation from the people. During the Swadeshi movement three factors contributed to the upsurge in the individual acts of violence: The apolitical constructive programmes had little acceptance among the youth who was growing impatient under the repressive foreign rule. The failure of the militant nationalists to lead the young people into a long-term mass movement also contributed to the growth of individual action. The revolutionary action was part of an effort towards the symbolic recovery of Indian manhood, which the revolutionaries believed was often challenged and looked down upon by the British.
Such actions, however, did not lead to any organised revolutionary movement as was the case in Russia. The revolutionary actions were mostly attempts to assassinate specific oppressive British officers. (a) Alipore Bomb Case In Bengal, the story of revolutionary terrorism begins in with