Bhagat Singh was murdered.
Bhagat Singh . In December 1928 , Bhagat Singh and an associate , Shivaram Rajguru , fatally shot a 21-year-old British police officer , John Saunders , in Lahore , British India , mistaking Saunders , who was still on probation , for the British police superintendent , James Scott , whom they had intended to assassinate . They believed Scott was responsible for the death of popular Indian nationalist leader Lala Lajpat Rai , by having ordered a lathi charge in which Rai was injured , and , two weeks after which , died of a heart attack . Awaiting trial , Singh gained much public sympathy after he joined fellow defendant Jatin Das in a hunger strike , demanding better prison conditions for Indian prisoners , and ending in Das 's death from starvation in September 1929 . Singh was convicted and hanged in March 1931 , aged 23 . Although many of Singh 's associates , as well as many Indian anti-colonial revolutionaries , were also involved in daring acts , and were either executed or died violent deaths , few came to be lionized in popular art and literature to the same extent as Singh .