Pride of spl place for Azad's ashes

Lucknow: As the nation steps into its 70th year of independence, the urn containing the ashes of freedom fighter and revolutionary Chandra Shekhar 'Azad' completed its 40 years in the

State Museum

. The urn was kept at a special gallery for visitors as part of

Jashn-e-Azadi

celebrations to mark the 70th Independence Day. Much about the special urn remains unknown to public.

Sunday, the eve of the Independence Day sprang a surprise for some visitors, who while visiting the State Museum were amazed to see the urn containing the ashes of Azad and said they had never noticed it on their previous visits.

Director of State Museum, Yashwant Singh Rathore, said, "After the cremation of Chandra Shekhar 'Azad', some of his ashes was kept in safe custody of

Shiv Vinayak Mishra

(Azad's uncle). The ashes have been kept as a memory of the revolutionary." He added that the historical procession (

Shobhaa Yatra

) of the ashes of Chandra Shekhar Azad started on August 1, 1976 from Varanasi's

Vidyapeeth

and reached the State Museum in Lucknow on August 10, 1976.

Born in 1887 in Unnao's Beeghapur, Shiv Vinayak

Mishra

was a freedom fighter who participated in the Satyagraha movement on a call given by Mahatma Gandhi and also in the Non-Cooperation movement from 1930-32. When Azad grew up, he fled his parent's home to Banaras. His uncle

Pandit Shiv Vinayak Mishra

used to stay there. Chandra Shekhar took some help from him and made some arrangements to get admission in the Sanskrit College.

Aadesh Shukla, who visited the

Lucknow State Museum

along with his friends was amazed to tumble upon the urn containing the ashes of Chandra Shekhar Azad. "I had visited the museum earlier, but it seems that I had always missed the urn containing the ashes of Chandra Shekhar Azad. Anyway thanks to Jashn-e-Azadi, I not only saw the urn, but also clicked its photo," Shukla said.

Anupam Mishra, while reacting to development was of the view that the Uttar Pradesh government must give adequate publicity to this special urn, which contains the ashes of Chandra Shekhar Azad kept in State Museum, Lucknow. "Some of the amount of money spent on the advertisements by the UP government, could be easily diverted to give some publicity to this," Mishra said. In the 2014

Lok Sabha

election, Swarajya Party of India headed by

Anupam Mishra

fielded Azad's great-grandson

Rajeev Mishra

alias Raju from the Unnao parliamentary constituency.