In 1928, the British government set up the Simon Commission to report on the political situation in India.When the Commission visited Lahore on 30 October 1928, Lala Lajpat Rai led a non-violent protest against the Commission in a silent march, but the police responded with violence. The superintendent of police, James A. Scott, ordered the police to lathi charge the protesters and personally assaulted Rai, who was grievously injured, later on Rai could not recover from the injury and died on 17 November 1928. When the matter was raised in the British Parliament, the British Government denied any role in Rai's death. Although Bhagat Singh did not witness the event, he vowed to take revenge and joined other revolutionaries, Shivaram Rajguru, Sukhdev Thapar, Chandrashekhar Azad, in a plot to kill Scott.

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