AN INDIAN MUTINEER.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume IV, Issue 226, 4 July 1873, Page 3

AN INDIAN MUTINEER.

1 Years, may. elapse from the commis-1 sion of a crime, to its.,punishment;. but Justice,, apparently sleeping, strikes home at last. Of this we have a somewhat curious case in the columns of the •Pioneer,' an Indian journal; in which is given at length the trial of one Niaz Mahomed Khan, a chieftain who commanded a field force operating against the British in that memorable year of Indian Mutiny, 1857. A generationhas ;more" than half-gone since England was; Btirred to its 'very heart by the news of that vast uprising of the Sepoy soldiery, which at one time threatened the very existence of pur rule in.Hindostan, and the lapse of these sixteen years has been sufficient in some measure to obliterate the awfql : memories of the CawrvDore and other massacres,

and to bluiit somewhat our recollection of-the brave deeds of a Havelock, a Nicholson, a-lNiel, and a Campbell, 'by which Belhi fell and India was saved. ■■ At ■intervals, it is true, our reminiscences of the mutiny have been freshened up by the capture, trial, and execution of some one-of'-the rebels, who, escaping at the time they richly deserved punishment, met afterwards the death penalty ; but if our recollection does not betray us, some little time has elapsed since, prior to the capture of : Niaz ' Mahomed Khan, a Sepoy rebel chief has been executed. In April last, Niaz was-placed on his. trial in the Court of..Sessions, Budaon. In -the . preliminary examination previously before a magistrate he condemned himself by declaring; he was a leader in the" forefront of the rebellion. In the " statement " then made the following .occurs :"—" I received directions- from Khan Bahadoor Khan to join my forces withthose cf Ismail Khan, and to encounter the English at Shumshabad. I accordingly went with a force of 100 cavalry under Munsoor Beg, 300 infantry from Budoan,. and 2,750 of my own troops, and three guns.-- I "encountered the English forces at' Shumshabad, but. did not.meet withIsmail Khan. My horse was shot in the action, and .fell with me, and. crushed my foot, I .was also wounded 3 in the head. I was defeated and.ljjljd to Budaon." After the rebellionf||rli,9* crushed the rebel chief led a wandering and a somewhat eventful Here are his own words ; : —" I remaineda year and a half in Lucknow ; thence' : I went to Mecca, where I spent two years ; then to Medina, where I spent one year. I went then to Born-, bay and took service in Kattyawar with the cavalry of Kamal-ood-een for ■■ two years. Kamal-ood-een is the--' zemindar of twenty-five villages. I then served some ship merchants for seven years. I again took service as a sowar with-a Kawab, named Muheeb Khan, for four years. Hearing that the Nawab of Eampore was going to Mecca, I came to Bombay. I remained three months, when a spy from Rampore gave information to the Magistrate. I was apprehended and taken before him." The trial, -which extended over three. days ended as a matter of course in a sentence of death Iseing passed.