On this day in 1922, the revolutionary freedom fighter, Alluri Sitarama Raju, had attacked the British police station at Chintapalli in Visakhapatnam Agency.
The revolutionaries had a unique way of despatching messages to the British officials. They used to shoot an arrow, along with a bunch of chillies and a typed message. They had coined it ‘Mirapakaaya Tapa’, or ‘Chilli Post’, which had created a scare among the British.
To mark the “centenary of the Chilli Post,” the Department of Posts is gearing up to release special covers on the series of attacks Sitarama Raju had carried out on the police stations.
The special covers, which lucidly explain the attacks, will be released at Chintapalli on Sunday.
The first attack
“After carrying out his first attack on the Chintapalli police station, Sitarama Raju had targeted the police station at Krishnadevipeta on August 23,1922. He had collected a few arms and ammunition without much resistance from the policemen present there,” says Mutyala Venkateswarlu, Post Master General, Visakhapatnam Region, who has developed the content for the special covers.
“Handerson, the then District Magistrate, had submitted a report on the incidents to the Chief Secretary, wherein he said that the attacks were mainly aimed at taking away the arms and ammunition, and not to plunder,” Mr. Venkateswarlu says.
Handerson had further said that “though there is a linkage with the civil disobedience movement, the main reason for the revolt is yet to be known.”
The attack on the Chintapalli police station had led to the ‘Rampa Revolution’ against the British rule that continued for almost two years, says Mr. Venkateswarlu.
‘Rampa Revolution’
The final war that had started on May 1, 1924, lasted six days until Sitarama Raju was captured by the British.
Kondapalli village, near Addatigala in East Godavari district, was the war zone in which Sitarama Raju had lost nearly 20 of his followers.
After his capture, the remaining followers, numbering about 30, were charged with treason and deported to the Cellular Jail in the Andamans, where they remained till attainment of Independence in 1947. Later, most of them had settled in the Andamans. The British later shot dead Sitarama Raju, who was then 27 years old.
“Sitarama Raju had became one of India’s youngest martyrs,” says Mr. Venkateswarlu.
Araku MP G. Madhavi and Paderu MLA K. Bhagya Lakshmi would attend the function as chief guest and special guest respectively.
