70 years ago on this day, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, known reverently as Mahatma Gandhi, was assassinated.
Gandhi was attacked while he was on his way to attend a prayer meeting at Birla House. His killer Nathuram Godse and Narayan Apte were convicted and hanged to death on November 15, 1949.
Gandhi's murder caused widespread grief and shocked the world, as is evident in historic records of the fateful day. While the world mourned, newspapers around the globe reported on the tragic loss.
Pakistan newspaper Dawn reported the assassination with the headline, 'Mahatma Gandhi A Martyr To Assassin's Bullet'.
The New York Times had a front-page story with the headline, 'Gandhi Is Killed By A Hindu', while US newspaper The Russel County News called his death, an 'Assassination by a 'Fanatic'.
Here's how newspapers reported Gandhi's assassination on 30.01.1948-
The Hindu described his last moments as, 'The last act Gandhiji did was to lift both his hands as a sign of prayer in the direction of the large gathering which had assembled for the prayer. Thereafter, he was speechless and the loss of blood, at his age and so soon after his fast, made death inevitable.'
The New York Times quoted Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru as lamenting the murder. “Our light has gone out, but the light that shone in this country was no ordinary light. For a thousand years that light will be seen in this country and the world will see it… Oh, that this has happened to us! There was so much more to do.”
Subsequent reportage on the trial of his murder occupied spaces on most dailies in the world. Gandhi, the 'most talked about man in the world' was not to be silenced thus.
Front-page reports now shifted to Gandhi's killers. Who were they and why did they kill the Father of the Nation.
