The Rodda Arms Heist of 1914 Calcutta
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The Rodda company arms heist took place on 26 August 1914 in Calcutta, British India. Members of the Jugantar faction of the Bengali revolutionary organisation Anushilan Samiti intercepted a shipment of Mauser Pistols and ammunition belonging to Messrs Rodda & co., a Calcutta gun dealer, while these were en route from the Customs house to the company's godown, and were able to make away with a portion the arms. The heist was a sensational incident, being described by The Statesman as the "Greatest daylight robbery". In the following years, the pistols and ammunitions were linked to almost all the incidences of nationalist struggles in Bengal. By 1922, the police had recovered most of the stolen arms.
Anukul Chandra Mukherjee, uncle of the famous Gopal Chandra Mukherjee was the mastermind of the Roda Arms Heist incident. Let's know about this loot in detail.....
The British govt started importing mass amount of firearms and ammunitions from the various manufacturers from Britain after the breakdown of the First World War on 26th August, 1914. This served as an opportunity to the various revolutionary organisations such as the Anushilan Samity and Jugantar to gain some firearms.
A conspiracy was being hatched and during the Judgement Day, 10 revolutionaries set out to shake the British Empire. It took about 7 Bullock carts to carry out the amount of arms they robbed. They perfectly managed to displace one of their carts to the city suburbs. Things were going perfectly according to the plan. The Brits didn't even understand until they found out one of their store keepers go missing, who was also a part of the Heist, Satish Chandra Mitra.
The revolutionaries finally managed to loot about 50 C96 Mauser Pistols alongwith 46,000 rounds of bullets in broad daylight. Few days later as the Brits govt finally came to know about the Heist, they referred it as "the greatest daylight robbery".
All the weapons and ammo were distributed amongst the various Swadeshi Freedom Fighters.
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