Was Bhagat Singh shot dead?
A new book on India’s most famous revolutionary who was hanged by the British on March 23, 1931, claims to have unearthed “hidden facts” showing that Bhagat Singh was not executed by hanging. Chaman Ahuja examines the facts revealed in the book. I n Punjab, the spirit of Bhagat Singh is rising again: preparations have started to organise big events to commemorate in a befitting manner the 75th anniversary of his martyrdom on March 23, 2006, and his birth centenary the following year, on September 28, 2007. Besides a series of huge melas, rallies and processions, explosion of theatrical bombardment, a spurt of books and treatises and a plethora of political rhetoric, one may expect the occasion to open a Pandora’s box of controversies, old and new. In fact, a Chandigarh publisher, Unistar, blazed the trail by releasing a book in London (on October 28). For all one knows, its hitting the bookstands might prove the stirring of a hornet’s nest. Titled Some Hidden Facts: Martyrdom of