Amit Shah to launch work on memorial at Gorata, the Jallianwala Bagh of south India

The Yuvamorcha cell of the BJP has collected about Rs 27 lakh as contribution from across the state for the construction of the 35-foot memorial. Besides, the party also plans to erect a statue of Sardar Vallabhai Patel at the spot chosen for the memorial.

When India attained Independence in 1947, the people of Gorata took to the streets chanting ‘Vande Mataram’. However, the region was still under the princely state of Hydrabad and the Nizam took objection to the sloganeering and ordered his army to kill the ‘traitors’. A massacre dubbed as the Jallianwala Bagh of the south ensued. “The Nizam dispatched about 3,000 Razakars who surrounded the village on May 9, 1948 and murdered about 200 villagers by firing at them,” Muniraju Gowda says.