Mangal Pandey was born on 19 July 1827 in a Brahmin family at Nagwa, a village of upper Ballia district, Ceded and Conquered Provinces (now in Uttar Pradesh). He had joined the Bengal Army in 1849. In March 1857, Pandey was a private soldier in the 5th Company of the 34th Bengal Native Infantry.[1]
On the afternoon of 29 March 1857, Lieutenant Baugh, Adjutant of the 34th Bengal Native Infantry, then stationed at Barrackpore was informed that several men of his regiment were in an excited state. Further, it was reported to him that one of them, Mangal Pandey, was pacing in front of the regiment's guard room by the parade ground, armed with a loaded musket, calling upon the men to rebel and threatening to shoot the first European that he set eyes on. Testimony at a subsequent enquiry recorded that Pandey, unsettled by unrest amongst the sepoys and intoxicated by the narcotic bhang, had seized weapons and run to the quarter-guard building upon learning that a detachment of British soldiers was disembarking from a steamer near the cantonment.[2]
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