Death
Following the failure of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the last Moghul Emperor, Bahadur Shah II, was captured by Major Hodson at his camp at Humayun’s Tomb, just outside Delhi. Mirza Mughal and two other Mughul princes were with the Emperor (another son, Mirza Khizr Sultan, and a grandson, Mirza Abu Bakr) and they refused to surrender. The next day, Hodson went back to the camp with one hundred horsemen and demanded the three princes' unconditional surrender. A crowd of thousands of rebels gathered, and Hodson ordered them to disarm, which they did. He sent the princes ahead with an escort of ten men, while with his remaining ninety men he collected the arms of the crowd.
On going after the princes, Hodson found the crowd was again pressing towards the escort. The princes were mounted on a bullock-cart and driven towards the city. As they approached the city gate, Hodson ordered the three princes to get off the cart and to strip off their upper garments. He then shot them dead, before stripping the princes of their signet rings, turquoise arm-bands and bejewelled swords. Their bodies were thrown in front of a kotwali, or police-station, and left there to be seen by all. The gate near which the executions were performed is called the Khooni Darwaza, or Bloody Gate.
Read more about this topic: Mirza Mughal
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“I would not that death should take me asleep. I would not have him meerly seise me, and onely declare me to be dead, but win me, and overcome me. When I must shipwrack, I would do it in a sea, where mine impotencie might have some excuse; not in a sullen weedy lake, where I could not have so much as exercise for my swimming.”
—John Donne (c. 1572–1631)
“It is a sign of creeping inner death when we can no longer praise the living.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relations with this best and truest friend of mankind, that his image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling! And I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity ... of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness.”
—Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)