AI Generated Summary
- Recent forensic and historical investigations have confirmed that a dry well near Ajnala—long whispered about in local lore as the Kalian Wala Khu or “Well of the Blacks”—was the site of a gruesome massacre during the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny.
- It serves not just as a marker of tragedy, but as a place of remembrance—for the sepoys who paid the ultimate price for defying colonial rule, and for a truth that refused to remain buried.
- Contrary to earlier assumptions, the remains were not of Punjabis, but of soldiers from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, and West Bengal—members of the 26th Native Infantry regiment once stationed at the Mian Mir Cantonment in Lahore.
A silent corner of Punjab’s Ajnala tehsil has emerged from the shadows of history to tell a harrowing tale buried for over 150 years. Recent forensic and historical investigations have confirmed that a dry well near Ajnala—long whispered about in local lore as the Kalian Wala Khu or “Well of the Blacks”—was the site of a gruesome massacre during the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny.
In 2014, a team of researchers unearthed human remains from the well, revealing a chilling episode of colonial brutality. Contrary to earlier assumptions, the remains were not of Punjabis, but of soldiers from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, and West Bengal—members of the 26th Native Infantry regiment once stationed at the Mian Mir Cantonment in Lahore.
The events date back to the early months of the 1857 uprising against British rule. On May 13 of that year, the British, fearing mutiny, disarmed the 26th regiment. Yet defiance flared two-and-a-half months later when a sepoy, Prakash Singh (also known as Prakash Pandey), assassinated Major Spencer and two other British officers on July 30. The regiment then revolted and began moving southward along the Ravi River.
Their movement, however, did not go unnoticed. Alerted by local villagers, the Ajnala Tehsildar mobilized a police party. With help from residents of Shahpur village, they cornered the fleeing sepoys near Shahpur Ghat that same evening.
The confrontation that followed was merciless. Around 150 sepoys were shot and their bodies cast into the river. Fifty more drowned trying to escape. The remaining 282 were captured and imprisoned overnight in a cramped, suffocating room at the tehsil office in Ajnala. By morning, 45 had perished from lack of air.
But worse was to follow.
According to The Crisis in the Punjab (1858), written by British Deputy Commissioner Frederick Cooper, the surviving 237 men were methodically executed—shot in batches of ten. Their bodies were then discarded into a nearby dry well and covered with earth, silencing their stories for generations.
That silence ended in 2014. When researchers excavated the site, skulls bearing bullet wounds and trauma were discovered, confirming accounts of the mass execution. The gruesome find forced a reckoning with this obscured chapter of India’s freedom struggle.
Today, a memorial stands at the site, a stark contrast to the mass grave it once was. It serves not just as a marker of tragedy, but as a place of remembrance—for the sepoys who paid the ultimate price for defying colonial rule, and for a truth that refused to remain buried.
As flowers now bloom where bodies once lay, Ajnala’s soil speaks once more—of sacrifice, forgotten histories, and a chapter India can finally begin to remember.
