Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev were sentenced to death in the Lahore conspiracy case and ordered to be hanged on 24 March 1931.
On 17 March 1931, the Home Secretary, Punjab, sent a telegram to the Home Department, New Delhi, fixing the execution on 23 March 1931. Singh was informed that his execution had been advanced by 11 hours on 23 March 1931, just a few hours before his execution. Singh was hanged on 23 March 1931 at 7:30 pm in Lahore jail with his fellow comrades Rajguru and Sukhdev. It is reported that no magistrate of the time was willing to supervise his hanging. The execution was supervised by the Honorary Magistrate of Kasur, Nawab Muhammad Ahmad Khan Kasuri, who also signed Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev's death warrants as their original warrants had expired. The jail authorities then broke the rear wall of the jail and secretly cremated the three martyrs under cover of darkness outside Ganda Singh Wala village, and then threw the ashes into the Sutlej river, about 10 km from Ferozepore (and about 60 km from Lahore).
Gandhi
In the words of Subhash Chandra Bose: "Bhagat Singh had become the symbol of the new awakening among the youths ...". Nehru acknowledged that the popularity of Singh was leading to a new national awakening, saying
"He was a clean fighter who faced his enemy in the open field....he was like a spark that became a flame in a short time and spread from one end of the country to the other dispelling the prevailing darkness everywhere."
Four years after Singh's hanging, the Director of the Intelligence Bureau, Sir Horace Williamson, wrote:
"His photograph was on sale in every city and township and for a time rivalled in popularity even that of Mr. Gandhi himself."
