Lal Bahadur Rai

Com Lal Bahadur Rai was the President of Samastipur College, Samastipur, Bihar. His father was a Grade IV railway employee. He came to contact with the SFI during 1979, after he passed his matriculation. He was elected President of the SFI college unit in 1980. He fought for the post of President in Samastipur College as a candidate of SFI and lost the elections by five votes. He led an agitation for increasing the number of seats in the graduation courses. For this, on the 7th January 1981, the unit started an indefinite boycott of classes in the college. Com Lal Bahadur Rai played a prominent role in this agitation. On 9th January 1981, he was arrested and was sent to district jail. Even in jail, he did not lose his morale but started a hunger strike against the inhuman treatment inside the jail. On 14th January the district magistrate and the Superintendent of the Police came inside the jail to break this agitation and started lathi charge on the agitators. Police started firing inside the jail on the peaceful agitators. The jail mates of Com Rai immediately realised that the real target of the police was Com Rai and hid him under blankets. But the police found him and beat him on his head with bayonets and rifle butts. The police did not take Com Rai to the hospital even though he was severely injured fearing that their brutalities would come to the notice of the public. They were forced to admit him in the hospital after they realised that otherwise he would lose his life. He was admitted to the Medical College hospital in the evening, where he succumbed to his injuries on the 21st of January 1981.