The Amko Simko massacre or Amco Simco firing took place on 25 April 1939, when Lt. E. W. Marger ordered troops of the British Indian Army to open fire on a crowd of tribal peasants resisting the arrest of their leader, Nirmal Munda in Simko village, Gangpur estate (now Birmitrapur, Sundergarh, Odisha). On Tuesday, 25 April 1939, a crowd of tribal peasants had gathered under the leadership of Nirmal Munda (a freedom fighter) at Amko-Simko field. The crowd was protesting high taxes and denied land rights. Rani Janaki arrived at Simko village with a political agent, Lieutenant E. W. Marger, with the sole intent to arrest Nirmal Munda on the grounds of holding seditious meetings and assaulting a village chowkidar. The crowd was warned to hand over their leader, Nirmal Munda, and disperse. However, the crowd of tribals armed with lathis, axes, and other crude weapons resisted the arrest of their leader. Consequently, scuffles broke out and the police resorted to firing their weapons. After they fired their weapons into the crowd, Nirmal Munda and his associates were arrested and jailed. This marked the end of the Munda agitation in Gangpur against the exorbitant taxes. History The term "Khunt" means lineage and "Katti" means the reclaimers. The Khuntkatti is a customary institution of the Munda tribe. This age-old system is found among the Mundas of Chhotangpur region. It provides collective ownership of land among families or lineage of the same killi (clan) inside the tribe. It gives the original settlers the ownership of land, water and forests. In 1765, Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II assigned the Diwani or revenue administration of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa to the East India Company. The Chhotanagpur region, thus, came under Company rule and subsequently British Raj. The new colonial government created laws that placed taxes on lands that had been cultivated by tribals for generations and reduced the Khuntkattidars to tenants of these lands, contrary to the Khuntkatti tradition where tribes were the owners of their lands. This was followed by a series of tribal rebellions allover the Chhotanagpur region, starting from the Tilka Manjhi revolt of 1784. Gangpur State came under the Chotanagpur states and was composed mostly of Munda and Oraon tribals. The Mundas of Gangpur claimed and demanded Khuntkatti rights. Decades of uprisings and rebellions across Chhotanagpur forced the British government to pass the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act, 1908 which recognized and