Vakkom Abdul Khader

Vakkom Abdul Khader (1917–1943) was an Indian revolutionary and soldier in the Subhas Chandra Bose also known as Indian National Army. He was a trained radio communicator & revolutionary. He was hanged in Madras Central Jail on 10 September 1943 along with his three comrades Satyen Bardhan, Anandan and Fauja Singh, all three walked up to the their place of death, while singing the Vande Mataram song and raising the slogan of Vande Mataram. Abdul Khader himself raised the slogan "Netaji Subhas Babu ki jai ! Down with the British Government ! Victory to India !".

The soldiers of the Indian National Army, Abdul Khader and his three comrades Satyen Bardhan, Fauja Singh and Anandan were executed in the Madras Penitentiary on 10 September 1943. Almost the whole night previous to the executions the prison reverberated with the song Vande Mataram. With great courage each of them, Abdul Khader, Satyen Bardhan, Fauja Singh and Anandan, ascended the steps to the gallows while raising the slogan of Vande Mataram, which meant ''Hail my Motherland''. Abdul Khader himself raised the slogan '' Netaji Subhas Babu ki jai ! Down with the British Government ! Victory to India ! ''

Khader and others were executed at on Friday, 10 September 1943, at twelve o'clock midnight. A small memorial is built at Travancore in their memory.

Abdul Khader was born on 25 May 1917, at Vakkom, Thiruvananthapuram District. His father's was Vavakunju and mother's Ummusalma. He got his primary education at a local school and later he got his secondary education at Sree Narayana Vilasa high school (founded by Sree Narayan Guru). He was a school hero and a good football player in his childhood days at school. At the same time, he actively participated in the freedom struggle and delighted the people with his exciting patriotic songs. During Mahatma Gandhi visit to Kerala, when the train stopped at Kadakkavur railway station, the locals would proudly say that Gandhiji was garlanded by a young boy named Abdul Khader, in the middle of a large crowd. In 1938, at the age of 21, Khader moved to Malaysia at the behest of his father, where he joined the engineering department of the Public Works Department, but did not pursue it. The excitement of the Indian freedom struggle shook Khader's mind. Khader joined the Indian Independence League, which was fighting for Indian independence in Malaysia at the time, and later became a revolutionary leader. He was also the secretary of the Kerala Muslim Union, a group of Kerala Muslims in Malaysia who collaborated with the Independent League. Khader joined the Indian National Army, which was formed by Netaji Subhas Bose, and became its Commander-in-Chief. After completing his training at the Indian Swaraj Institute (housed in the Free School, Penang, now the Penang Museum), which was set up to train Indian National Army soldiers, Khader became a member of the Choir Squad, a corps of heroes.