Patna massacre of 1763

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The Patna massacre of 1763 was the killing of 45 [1] members of the East India Company, mainly English, on 6 October 1763, [2] in Patna, India, on the order of Nawab Mir Qasim. These men had been imprisoned by Mir Qasim since William Ellis' failed attempt to seize Patna for the East India Company on 25 June the same year. Following Mir Qasim's defeat, a pillar was erected over the site of the well into which their bodies were thrown [3] and over the houses where the massacre was committed, but nowadays a hospital stands where the monument used to be. [4]

200 sepoys, previously in the pay of the East India Company, and also imprisoned after the failed seizure of Patna and its aftermath, were also killed for refusing to join the ranks of Mir Qasim, though they are not traditionally included in the massacre narrative. Doctor William Fullerton, a Scottish surgeon in the East India Company, survived the Patna Massacre due to the intercession of Ghulam Hussain Khan, [5] and may have been the only survivor of the massacre

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References

  1. Dalrymple, W. (2019). The Anarchy. London: Bloomsbury. pp. 185–6.
  2. Dalrymple, W. (2019). The Anarchy. London: Bloomsbury. p. 184.
  3. Brown, Rebecca M. (2006). "Inscribing Colonial Monumentality: A Case Study of the 1763 Patna Massacre Memorial" . The Journal of Asian Studies . 65 (1): 91–113. doi:10.1017/S0021911806000076. ISSN   0021-9118. JSTOR   25075973. S2CID   154678773.
    - O`malley, L. S. S. (1924). Bihar And Orissa District Gazetteers Patna. Concept Publishing Company. ISBN   9788172681210.
    - Crawford, Lieutenant-Colonel D. G. (1930). Roll of the Indian Medical Service 1615-1930. Vol. 1. Andrews UK Limited. ISBN   9781781502297.
  4. Sinha, K. K. (1995). "Dr William Fullerton and the Patna Massacre of 1763" (PDF). Proceedings of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. 25 (2). Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh: 292–3. PMID   11639641 . Retrieved 25 October 2020.
  5. Dalrymple, W. (2019). The Anarchy. London: Bloomsbury. p. 186.

Further reading