HM Prison Maze However, the government immediately reverted to their previous stance, in the belief that the prisoners would not start another strike. Bobby Sands, the leader of the Provisional IRA prisoners, began a second action on 1 March 1981. Outside the prison, in a major publicity coup, Sands was nominated for Parliament and won the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election. But the British government still resisted and on 5 May, after 66 days on hunger strike, Sands died. More than 100,000 people attended Sands' funeral in Belfast. Another nine hunger strikers (members of both the IRA and the INLA) died by the
Hunger strike 1929 that Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt gave up their strike (surpassing the 97-day world record for hunger strikes which was set by an Irish revolutionary). During this hunger strike that lasted 116 days and ended with the British succumbing to his wishes, he gained much popularity among the common Indians. Before the strike his popularity was limited mainly to the Punjab region. After Indian Independence, freedom fighter Potti Sreeramulu used hunger strikes to get a separate state for Telugu-speaking people. Morarji Desai went on fast twice during Nav Nirman in the seventies and prior to that Indulal Yagnik alias