NEW DELHI: The decision to celebrate September 17 every year as ‘Hyderabad Liberation Day’ is a befitting tribute to freedom fighters and will ignite the “flame of patriotism” among youth, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Wednesday. The central government had issued a notification on Tuesday on the commemoration.
In a post on ‘X’, Shah said it is a historic day as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided to celebrate September 17 every year as Hyderabad Liberation Day in honour of the martyrs of the Hyderabad liberation movement.
He said the decision is a befitting tribute to the freedom fighters and the martyrs who made the supreme sacrifice to remain a part of Bharat by liberating the Hyderabad region from the brutal Nizam rule. “I welcome Modi Ji’s landmark decision, which will ignite the flame of patriotism among the youth and immortalise our icons of the freedom movement,” he said.
In the notification, the Union Home Ministry said Hyderabad did not get independence for 13 months after the Independence of India on August 15, 1947, and was under Nizam’s rule.
The region was liberated from Nizam’s rule on September 17, 1948, after a police action namely ‘Operation Polo’. The ‘Razakars’, a private militia, had committed atrocities and defended the erstwhile Nizam rule in Hyderabad When India gained independence, the Razakars called for Hyderabad state to either join Pakistan or to become a Muslim dominion while resisting its merger with the Union of India.
The people of the region fought valiantly against the atrocities of the ‘Razakars’ to merge the region into the Union of India.
On September 17, 1948, the then Hyderabad state was annexed into the Union of India following military action, initiated by the then Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.
Modi government has been holding an event on September 17 for the last few years to commemorate ‘Hyderabad Liberation Day’. Union Home Minister Amit Shah had also attended the event in the past.