Freedom fighters in Bhubaneswar on their way to attend Kranti Divas. Pictures by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, Aug. 7: For Biswanath Das, a 94-year-old freedom fighter, the memory of the struggle for Independence is still fresh.

Das remembers the days when they had become mentally prepared to fight the British Army in exchange of their life.

“We had only one option — do or die. Once we had decided that nobody in the village would blow conch. Only the person, who used to ferry boat in the river, was given a conch, so that whenever the British Army approached our village the conch sound would alert us,” said Das.

Apart from Das, four veteran freedom fighters of Odisha will be felicitated by the President at the At Home ceremony to be held on Kranti Divas on August 9 to commemorate the Quit India movement.

Das, along with Chakradhar Parida, 88, and Jagannath Pradhan, 92, of Nayagarh, Chaturbhuj Mishra, 88, of Balasore and veteran freedom fighter Mohammed Bazi, 92, from Nabarangpur, today flew to New Delhi to attend the felicitation programme.

Odisha finance minister Prasanna Acharya saw them off at Biju Patnaik Airport here.

He described them as the “living lights of freedom movement”, who are source of inspiration to the coming generations to protect the unity and integrity of the country. Das and Parida were member of the Ajad Hind Fauj, founded by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. Both of them recollected the days when they were fighting the British Army.

“We were very excited when we took weapons at the call of Netaji to win our Independence from the British,” said Parida.

“Nowadays, people’s mindset has changed a lot. Everyone should choose the country before caste and religion,” said Bazi.

On the other hand, the freedom fighters rued the government apathy towards them.

“We are living disgracefully and the monthly pension is not sufficient for us to meet our day-to-day needs. The government should increase our monthly pension,” said Mishra.

Last year, the Odisha government raised the monthly pension of those, who were jailed during the freedom movement, from Rs 2,000 to Rs 4,000.