<P> The British soon arrested Bahadur Shah, and the next day the British agent William Hodson had his sons Mirza Mughal, Mirza Khazir Sultan, and grandson Mirza Abu Bakr shot under his own authority at the Khooni Darwaza (the bloody gate) near Delhi Gate . On hearing the news Zafar reacted with shocked silence while his wife Zinat Mahal was content as she believed her son was now Zafar's heir . Shortly after the fall of Delhi, the victorious attackers organised a column that relieved another besieged Company force in Agra, and then pressed on to Cawnpore, which had also recently been retaken . This gave the Company forces a continuous, although still tenuous, line of communication from the east to west of India . </P> <P> In June, sepoys under General Wheeler in Cawnpore (now Kanpur) rebelled and besieged the European entrenchment . Wheeler was not only a veteran and respected soldier but also married to a high - caste Indian lady . He had relied on his own prestige, and his cordial relations with the Nana Sahib to thwart rebellion, and took comparatively few measures to prepare fortifications and lay in supplies and ammunition . </P> <P> The besieged endured three weeks of the Siege of Cawnpore with little water or food, suffering continuous casualties to men, women and children . On 25 June Nana Sahib made an offer of safe passage to Allahabad . With barely three days' food rations remaining, the British agreed provided they could keep their small arms and that the evacuation should take place in daylight on the morning of the 27th (the Nana Sahib wanted the evacuation to take place on the night of the 26th). Early in the morning of 27 June, the European party left their entrenchment and made their way to the river where boats provided by the Nana Sahib were waiting to take them to Allahabad . Several sepoys who had stayed loyal to the Company were removed by the mutineers and killed, either because of their loyalty or because "they had become Christian ." A few injured British officers trailing the column were also apparently hacked to death by angry sepoys . After the European party had largely arrived at the dock, which was surrounded by sepoys positioned on both banks of the Ganges, with clear lines of fire, firing broke out and the boats were abandoned by their crew, and caught or were set on fire using pieces of red hot charcoal . The British party tried to push the boats off but all except three remained stuck . One boat with over a dozen wounded men initially escaped, but later grounded, was caught by mutineers and pushed back down the river towards the carnage at Cawnpore . Towards the end rebel cavalry rode into the water to finish off any survivors . After the firing ceased the survivors were rounded up and the men shot . By the time the massacre was over, most of the male members of the party were dead while the surviving women and children were removed and held hostage to be later killed in The Bibighar massacre . Only four men eventually escaped alive from Cawnpore on one of the boats: two private soldiers, a lieutenant, and Captain Mowbray Thomson, who wrote a first - hand account of his experiences entitled The Story of Cawnpore (London, 1859). </P> <P> During his trial, Tatya Tope denied the existence of any such plan and described the incident in the following terms: the Europeans had already boarded the boats and Tatya Tope raised his right hand to signal their departure . That very moment someone from the crowd blew a loud bugle, which created disorder and in the ongoing bewilderment, the boatmen jumped off the boats . The rebels started shooting indiscriminately . Nana Sahib, who was staying in Savada Kothi (Bungalow) nearby, was informed about what was happening and immediately came to stop it . Some British histories allow that it might well have been the result of accident or error; someone accidentally or maliciously fired a shot, the panic - stricken British opened fire, and it became impossible to stop the massacre . </P>

The revolt of 1857 _ the first war of independence in hindi