Mumbai, Sep 24 (IANS): Late actor A. K. Hangal, who is known for ‘Sholay’, ‘Shagird’, ‘Parichay’, ‘Garm Hava’ and others, once revealed that he was one of the people from across the Indian subcontinent who signed a mercy petition for Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh.

A throwback video of the late actor talking about his involvement with the Indian freedom struggle has resurfaced on social media.

He said in the video, “I was one of the people who signed a mercy petition in favour of Bhagat Singh to the Viceroy. But the Britishers didn’t pay attention to it, and he was martyred. There was a meeting of the Pathans that was held on the evening of March 23 when Bhagat Singh was hanged. The Pathans were crying inconsolably, and recited a poem for him, the poem was in Pashto.”

He further mentioned, “That spirit of liberation turned me into a revolutionary, and later I got involved with trade unionism and communism.”

In December 1928, Bhagat Singh and his associate, Shivaram Rajguru, shot dead a 21-year-old British police officer, John Saunders, in Lahore, Punjab, in present-day Pakistan. They mistook Saunders, who was still on probation, for the British senior police superintendent, James Scott, whom they had intended to assassinate.

Bhagat Singh and Rajguru were the members of a revolutionary group, the Hindustan Socialist Republican Association.

He later took part in a largely symbolic bombing of the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi and a hunger strike in jail.

Bhagat Singh was convicted of the murder of Saunders and was hanged in March 1931, at the age of 23. He became a popular folk hero after his death.