In 1946, Gopal Pantha, a notorious mastaan (goon) of north Calcutta, was 33 years old. Everybody called him by the nickname Pantha, a goat, because he ran a meat shop in College Street (in the Boubazar area). Although he was the leader of a gang of neighbourhood thugs, Gopal did not belong to any criminal underclass of the city. His Brahmin upper caste family (his patrilineal name was Mukherjee) had links to the Congress party and had contributed their share to the militant nationalist movements of the 1930s. On the morning of 16 August 1946, he left for his shop as usual but when he heard about the trouble he came back to his locality.

He organized his ‘boys’ because he thought ‘it was a very critical time for the country; the country had to be saved. If we become a part of Pakistan we will be oppressed … so I called all my boys and said this is the time we have to retaliate, and you have to answer brutality with brutality …

They armed themselves with small knives, swords, meat-choppers, sticks and rods, while Gopal had two American pistols tucked at his waist. He had procured these as well as some grenades from the American soldiers quartered in Calcutta in 1945. ‘If you paid two hundred and fifty rupees or bought them a bottle of whiskey the soldiers would give you a .45 and a hundred cartridges.’ As soon as the news of rioting spread his group of vigilantes swelled.