MCQ Questions

Articles Questions Current Affairs PYQ Papers My Progress

Questions

Practice mode — a mixed feed of questions and articles for each subject. Prefer reading first? Browse the Articles index instead →

Articles

Study mode — the full article library for each subject, no practice questions mixed in. Want to practice instead? Browse Questions by subject →

Ullaskar Dutta

Ullaskar Dutta built the bomb that Khudiram Bose and Prafulla Chaki carried to Muzaffarpur in 1908. Arrested the same day as Barindra Kumar Ghosh, he survived years of torture in the Cellular Jail that left him mentally scarred for life.

mcqquestion.com

Modern History · ModHist0179

Ullaskar Dutta

Jugantar’s bomb-maker, and a Cellular Jail torture survivor

16 Apr 1885

Born in Kalikachha, Tipperah district (now Bangladesh).

1908

Becomes Jugantar’s principal bomb-maker; his bomb is used at Muzaffarpur.

2 May 1908

Arrested in the Alipore Bomb Case; sentenced to death, later commuted.

1920

Released from the Cellular Jail, after years of brutal torture.

A bomb that outlived its maker’s freedom

The explosive Dutta built for one operation cost him 12 years of his life, and left him permanently affected by the torture that followed.

📑 Contents

1Must Know
2Good to Know
3Test Yourself
4Great to Know

Must Know

Ullaskar Dutta was born on 16 April 1885, in Kalikachha, then part of Tipperah district, Bengal Province, now in Bangladesh.
He studied chemistry at Presidency College, Calcutta, but was rusticated after striking a British professor over a remark about Bengalis.
He joined the Jugantar party, founded by Barindra Kumar Ghosh, and became its principal bomb-maker.
The bomb used by Prafulla Chaki and Khudiram Bose, in their 1908 attempt on magistrate Kingsford at Muzaffarpur, was one Dutta had built.
He was arrested on 2 May 1908, the same day as Barindra Kumar Ghosh, in the Alipore Bomb Case.
He was sentenced to death by hanging in 1909. On appeal, this was commuted to transportation for life.
He was deported to the Cellular Jail in the Andaman Islands, where he suffered repeated torture, including week-long chained suspension in 1912.
The torture is said to have permanently affected his mental health. He was released in 1920, and returned to Kolkata.

Good to Know

Dutta was one of two principal explosives experts of the Maniktala secret society, alongside Hemchandra Kanungo.
His father, Dwijadas Duttagupta, was a Brahmo Samaj member with an agriculture degree from the University of London.
He was arrested again in 1931 and sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment, decades after his first release.
He returned to his home village after India’s independence in 1947, living there for about a decade.
In 1957, he married Lila, daughter of the nationalist leader Bipin Chandra Pal, and moved to Kolkata.
He later settled in Silchar, in Assam‘s Cachar district, where he spent his final years.
He wrote two memoirs about his experiences: “Dvipantarer Katha” (The Tale of Deportation) and “Amar Karajiban” (My Prison Life).

Test Yourself

Great to Know

Dutta’s story links three separate figures in the Jugantar movement’s history. He built the bomb Prafulla Chaki carried, and shared his arrest date with Barindra Kumar Ghosh, the man who had recruited both of them.
His documented mental deterioration under Cellular Jail torture became one of the most cited examples of the prison’s brutal conditions toward political prisoners.
His later marriage to Bipin Chandra Pal’s daughter connects two separate strands of the freedom movement. One was Bengal’s armed revolutionary wing; the other, its more moderate nationalist leadership.
His life spans from the earliest Jugantar bombings of 1908 to well past independence, ending only in 1965. Few others had such a first-hand view of the movement’s entire arc.

Take a Modern Indian History QuizRandom practice question from this subject →