The Assassination of W C Rand by the Chapekar Brothers

When the Bubonic plague struck the district of Pune (Maharashtra) in 1896, the British government formed a Special Plague Committee, chaired by Walter Charles Rand, an Indian Civil Services (ICS) officer, to deal with the threat and control the spread of the disease. Rand began his reign of terror as soon as the efforts to stop the plague started. Instead of hiring doctors to carry out their duties ethically, the committee delegated over 800 officers and soldiers to discharge his orders in Pune. These officials entered private homes, stripped and inspected residents (including women) in public, evacuated people to hospitals and segregation camps, prohibited funerals, and impeded movement outside the city. Some of these officers also vandalized religious sites and symbols. Though the residents of Pune considered Rand's actions as downright oppressive, he dismissed their concerns. To end the Rand committee's intimidation, the Chapekar brothers and other revolutionary members of the ‘Chapekar Club’ decided to take action against W C Rand. During Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee Coronation, the brothers Damodar and Balkrishna Hari Chapekar assassinated two British officials, W C Rand and Lieutenant Ayerst (his military escort), on the Ganesh Khind Road (present-day Senapati Bapat Road) in Pune, Maharashtra. Vasudeo Hari Chapekar, the third brother, and his associates Khando Vishnu Sathe and Mahadev Vinayak Ranade assassinated the Dravid brothers, who were police informants. All three Chapekar brothers were found guilty and hanged, and an accomplice, Mahadev Ranade, a schoolboy at the time, was sentenced to ten years imprisonment. This was the first instance of aggressive nationalism in India after the First War of Independence in 1857.