Additional information
by Maj Gen Shahnawaz Khan (Author)
Born on 24 January 1914, in the village of Matore in Kahuta, Rawalpindi district (now in Pakistan), Khan was the son of Captain Sardar Tikka Khan, a high-ranking official in the British Indian Army. Like his father, Khan joined the British Army and received his military education at the Prince of Wales Royal Indian Military College in Dehradun and was commissioned into the 14th Punjab Regiment. During the Second World War, he was captured by the Japanese after the fall of Singapore in 1942. Khan was deeply influenced by Subhas Chandra Bose and decided to join the I.N.A. in 1943. He rose to the rank of Major General and played a crucial role in leading the army into North-Eastern India, seizing Kohima and Imphal, briefly held by the I.N.A. under Japanese authority. It was after the Declaration of War by Bose in 1945 and its aftermath, that Khan along Captain Prem Kumar Sahgal and Lieutenant Gurbaksh Singh Dhillon, was tried for treason in the famous Red Fort trials. The widespread public support and nationalist sympathies led to the commutation of their sentences. This trial significantly contributed to the growing discontent against British rule in India. My Memories of I.N.A. & Its Netaji, first published in 1946 was written as a tribute and celebration of the life and courage of Subhas Chandra Bose.
