Word: janata
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Prepare My Pyre." To spike Desai's guns, Ahmedabad's students promptly called a janata, i.e., a "people's curfew," for the day he was to speak. At dawn large bands of students began to swarm through Ahmedabad's streets warning shopkeepers to close up for the day. Only people with "passes" signed by local Socialist leaders were permitted on the streets and pigtailed girls of 15 or 16 stopped pedestrians to check on their passes. By midafternoon the student curfew was almost 100% effective, and at 4:15, shortly before Desai was due to speak...
Originally, the three were five, all Czechs: two brothers, Ctirad and Josef Masin, in their early 20s; a friend, Milan Baumer, 22, a military cadet; Zbynek Janata, 30, a factory executive; and Vaclav Svejda, 30, a disappropriated landowner. Armed with one revolver of about .35 caliber, two smaller automatics and 52 cartridges-arms hidden since World War II-the group formed up in Prague. Early in October they crossed the Czech-East German frontier at night. They were almost due south of Berlin and some 130 air miles away...
...were leaving the station," Ctirad Masin recounted later, "Vopos suddenly confronted us and asked for identification . . . My brother and I drew our guns and started shooting. Three of the Vopos fell, and the others fled, as did all the bystanders. Then we ran . . . Later we realized that Janata was missing. We heard from some East zone people that he had been arrested at the station...