Mohan Ranade

Ranade was born on 25 December 1930[3] in Sangli in present-day state of Maharashtra, India as Manohar Apte. He adopted nom de guerre, Mohan Ranade when he joined the Goa liberation with movement. [1]

Inspired by revolutionary leaders like Ganesh Damodar Savarkar and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Ranade joined the militant organization, Azad Gomantak dal in 1953.[4]

As a member of the organization, he was involved in the liberation of Silvassa in 1954. When he went to Goa, he found a job as a teacher in a Marathi school for girls in the village of Savoi Verem. According to his students, Ranade was a highly motivating Teacher. On Saturdays, he used to conduct student meetings to inculcate a sense of Indian nationalism, and a desire for liberation from colonial rule in them. Ranade also participated in a number of attacks on police and customs outposts, mines to obtain weapons and explosives for his organization. He also participated in the murder of a Goan man who had insulted the tricolor Flag of India. In October 1955, during an attack on Betim police, he was wounded by the Portuguese police. After recovering from his injuries, he was tried and sentenced in December 1956 to 26 years of rigorous imprisonment to be served in Portugal.[5]

Ranade was arrested by the colonial Portuguese police in 1955. Ranade was tried in Portugal and sentenced to twenty-four years of imprisonment.[6] He was incarcerated at the Fort of Caxias near Lisbon where he was kept in solitary confinement for six years. He was released in January 1969, more than six years after the liberation of Goa by India in 1962, and having served a total of 14 years in prison.The intervention of the then Tamil Nadu chief minister, Anna Durai,and Pope Paul was instrumental in securing his release.[7][8]

Ranade was honoured with Padma Shri in 2001 and with the Sangli Bhushan in 2006.[9] He was also awarded the Goa Puraskar in 1986 for his social work.

Ranade authored two books on the Goa Liberation Movement: Struggle Unfinished and Satiche Vaan. He ran a charitable organisation in Pune that sponsors education of students from economically backward backgrounds. He was chairman of the Goa Red Cross for over five years. He spent his later years in the city of Pune where he died on June 25, 2019.[1]