The list of outrages and deeds of violence which had begun in Bengal in 1907 grew heavier and heavier as 1908 wore on, but none perhaps created such a sensation there as the murder of Mrs. and Miss Kennedy, who were killed at Muzafferpur on April 30, 1908, by a bomb intended for the Magistrate, Mr. Kingsford.  The bomb had been thrown by a young Bengalee, Khudiram Bose, and it was the first occasion on which an Indian had used this product of modern science with murderous effect.  The excitement was intense.  The majority of the Bengalee papers, it is true, were fain to reprobate or at least to deprecate this particular form of propaganda, but such comments were perfunctory, whilst they generally agreed to cast the whole responsibility upon an alien Government whose resistance to their “national” aspirations goaded impatient patriotism to these extremes.  Even amongst many who did not actually sympathize with the murderer there seems to have been a lurking sense of pride that it was a Bengalee who had had the courage to lay down his life in the striking of such a blow.  Khudiram Bose at any rate was not “lily-livered.”  Khudiram Bose at any rate had shown that “determination” with the lack of which the writers in the Yugantar had so often taunted their fellow-countrymen.  So for the Nationalists of Bengal he became a martyr and a hero.  Students and many others put on mourning for him and schools were closed for two or three days as a tribute to his memory.  His photographs had an immense sale, and by-and-by the young Bengalee bloods took to wearing dhotis with Khudiram Bose’s name woven into the border of the garment.

Bomb explosions followed in quick succession in Calcutta itself, and a secret manufacture of explosives was discovered in a suburban garden.  Norendranath Gosain, who had turned approver in this last case, was shot dead in Alipur Gaol, and a Hindu police-inspector in the streets of Calcutta.  Four attempts made upon the life of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, Sir Andrew Fraser, showed how little effect leniency had upon the growing fierceness of the revolutionists.  Scarcely a month and often not a week passed without adding to the tale of outrages.  I need not recite them in detail.  Perhaps the most significant feature was the double purpose many of them indicated of defeating the detection and punishment of crime and of striking terror into Indians who ventured to serve the British, Raj[8].  Thus, on February 10, 1909, Mr. Ashutosh Biswas, the Public Prosecutor and a Hindu of high character and position, was shot dead outside the Alipur Police Court, and, in like manner nearly a year later, Mr. Shams-ul-Alam, a Mahomedan Inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department in the High Court itself of Calcutta.  Sedition was seething over the greater part of both Bengals, and though the agricultural population remained for the most part untouched or indifferent, there were few even of the smaller towns and larger villages that were not visited