Outside the Koti Bus Station stands a small white monument with four elephants holding up a pylon. It has one line in four languages: “In Memory of the Fighters for Freedom”, and a date, July 17, 1857. The space that is locked up is used by a pav-bhaji vendor to store his pantry and water bottles. Occasionally, a visitor stops to enter and sits down to watch the pylon and wonder what’s the connection between the busy traffic junction, the Andhra Bank building, the Metro, the pav bhaji and this strange monument that appears to have no story. A marker, a little away from the monument informs about the Martyrs Memorial and a date with history in 2007 when the then Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy inaugurated it to mark the 150th anniversary of the First War of Independence.
In the hurly-burly of life, the back story of the 1857 revolt in Hyderabad, is missing but is just as stirring.
It was a Friday like this one, 169 years ago, when the sermon at the Mecca Masjid became a centrepiece of revolt against the British rule in India. The assembled mass read the placards hung outside the main congregation mosque of the city. One of the placards read: “The aid of the Almighty and his Prophet is present with Afzul-ud-Dowla Bahadur who should not fear or be apprehensive. If fearful he should wear bangles and sit at home.” Another poster read: “Whoever will not come out for Jehad will be cut off from the society even for seven generations. He will be called a descendant of the family of a pig, a dog, and an ass.”
There was fury and there was an air of restiveness in the Nizam’s Dominion from Aurangabad to Hyderabad as the news of the First War of Independence and initial glorious victories in Meerut, Delhi, Lucknow and Kanpur reached the Nizam’s Dominion.
The trouble had been brewing for days. On June 14, 1857, when Moulvi Akbar of Mecca Masjid was giving a sermon, two men stood up and shouted at him ‘Why do you babble like a woman? Why do you not inculcate the raising of the holy standard?’ These men were saved from the Kotwal by the Sufi saint Shah Khamoush who was a regular at the main mosque and had the confidence of the Nizam Afzal ud Dowla. But on July 17, 1857, things took a turn when the Residency had a prisoner called Jamedar Cheeda Khan. Cheeda Khan rebelled and escaped from Aurangabad and reached Hyderabad thinking the Nizam will join him in the big revolt. Instead, Salar Jung handed him over to the British Resident.
After the Friday sermon at Mecca Masjid, Moulve Allaudin and Turrebaz Khan escaped the walled city of Hyderabad through the Champa Gate and reached the Begum Darwaza of the Residency along with 3,000 others, mostly students, Arabs and Rohilla soldiers.
What these people were against were heavily armed men of the East India Company: Three guns and two mortars, with detail of artillery of the Hyderabad Contingent, One troop Hyderabad Contingent Cavalry, Twenty-five troopers, Madras Light Cavalry and Two hundred Madras Native Infantry.
The British came out on top. More than 25 Indians were killed by next day morning. Moulvi Allauddin escaped to Bangalore where he was apprehended and sentenced to Kala Paani (Cellular Jail in Andamans). Turrebaz Khan’s story became one of the first playbook of police encounters.
“I identified Turrebaz Khan, who had a scar mark near one of his eyes. I wanted to arrest him but he and his associates drew their swords and attacked us. We then fired. In the course of the struggle Turrebaz Khan and one of his associates were killed,” Kurban Ali, a police official, informed Salar Jung on Jan 24, 1859, nearly a week after his escape on January 18.
His body was brought to Hyderabad and hung near the Residency building to deter others. The flames of rebellion were put out and India had to wait for another 90 years before becoming free.
Now, all that remains is the name of the road Turrebaz Khan Road.
Published – July 16, 2026 09:36 pm IST
