PANAJI:
From the year 1946, Galgibaga-born Alfred Afonso actively conducted propaganda for political awareness in Goan clubs in Bombay (now Mumbai). In 1952, he worked as the President of the Bombay branch of the National Congress (Goa) and its executive committee member. After resigning from Bombay Telephone, one of the first phone companies in the country, he led a group of 14 Satyagrahis at Terekhol Fort on August 15, 1954. They heroically captured the fort, hoisted the Tricolour and held it for a day. But subsequently, the freedom fighters were all arrested and mercilessly flogged while in Panaji police custody. Alfred Afonso was tried by the Tribunal Military Territorial, sentenced to eight years of rigorous imprisonment and three years of simple imprisonment at Aguada jail in March 1955, before he was released in May 1959. Alfred Afonso’s story is available at the Sinquerim-based Aguad Interactive Museum: Goa - The Land, The Struggle, The People.
