Muzaffarpur, Aug. 11: Hundreds of people, led by deputy inspector-general of police (Tirhut) Shushil Khopde and district magistrate (DM) Santosh Kumar Mall, paid floral tributes to Khudi Ram Bose at Khudi Ram Bose Central Jail in the small hours today.

Just before 3.50am, the gates of the central jail, where Khudi Ram Bose was hanged on August 11, 1908, was opened for visitors for a few hours.

Senior superintendent of police Rajesh Kumar, accompanied by central jail superintendent Vishwanath Prasad, senior government functionaries and invitees paid floral tributes inside the dingy cell that remains closed throughout the year. But today the cell was filled with fragrance and lights, where the officers focused on the martyr’s bravado.

A 16-member delegation of Bihar-Bengali Samiti, led by its secretary Rana Karmakar, visited the jail and lauded Bose’s heroic deeds. The jail administration permitted the samiti members to stay inside the cell for 1.5 hours.

Karmakar told The Telegraph: “It is unfortunate that the Bengal government has again not sent any representative to pay obeisance on Bose’s death anniversary the second consecutive year.” The samiti members appealed to Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee to renew the tradition of sending a government team led by a minister on the occasion. A 48-member team of Khudi Ram Bose and Prafulla Chaki Smarak Samiti, headed by its secretary Satish Patel, offered tributes to Bose’s bust on the occasion.

This year, Prakash Haldar, an ardent fan of Bose from the martyr’s native village, Habibpur in Bengal’s West Midnapore district, could not come owing to “unavoidable reasons”.