Goa Heritage Action Group and Goans For Education has taken up an initiative by the name of ‘Mission Karnail’ in which a request has been made to install the bust of martyr Sardar Karnail Singh Benipal – the unsung hero who braved bullets on his bare chest to free Goa from the Portuguese yoke at the tender age of 25. The bust, which is being readied by sculptor Sachin Madge free of cost, will be installed near the existing memorial of 32 Indian satyagrahis who laid their lives for Goa’s freedom.
Prajal Sakhardande, President of Goa Heritage Action Group says, “It is our dream to install a bust of Sardar Karnail Singh Benipal on the Goa-Maharashtra border where he became a martyr. A primary school in Patradevi named after him, Shaheed Sardar Karnail Singh Prathamik Shala was our first choice for the installation of the bust. One of our members, Kapil Korgaonkar spoke to the school authorities and we wrote a letter to the Education Department seeking permission for the same. The letter was then forwarded by the Education Department to the Home Ministry and we are yet to receive a reply from them. However, it was later decided to install the bust near the existing pedestal close to the school in Patradevi. We are working towards installing the bust by August 15 this year.”
Back then, Goa was under the Portuguese rule. The Goa Vimochan Sahayak Samiti was found in Poona in 1955 to liberate Goa. The GVSS gave a clarion call to all Indians to participate in Goa’s freedom struggle. Leaders like Pandit Kishori Lal, Vishnu Pant Chitale and others inspired Karnail to join Goa’s freedom movement and he enrolled himself as a Satyagrahi to liberate Goa in 1955.
On August 15, 1955, huge processions of Satyagrahis began to march towards the Goa border. One such procession was led by a young widow from Madhya Pradesh – Smt. Sahodaradevi Rai Sagar carrying the Indian flag in her hand. As this procession reached Patradevi – a village in Goa, on the northern border in the Pednem taluka, the Portuguese ordered firing on the unarmed Satyagrahis. One bullet hit Sahodaradevi’s arm and she collapsed with the flag. Karnail , who was at the rear of the procession saw this and rushed forward and challenged the Portuguese to shoot at him instead. The army shot him in his chest and the 25 year old fell down with his eyes open. The braveheart sacrificed his young life to free Goa from colonialism.
