On 30 July 1857 the 26th Native Infantry mutinied at Mian Mir near Lahore and fled toward the Ravi. Frederic Cooper, Deputy Commissioner of Amritsar, pursued them. Around 150 drowned or were killed at the river. Some 282 were taken prisoner and brought to Ajnala.
Cooper had 237 shot in batches, in the tehsil compound, on 1 August 1857. The remaining 45 were found dead of suffocation in the room where they had been held overnight. All the bodies were put into a dry well behind the building.
Cooper published his own account of it in 1858 and defended what he had done in detail.
The well was under a gurdwara built later. In February 2014 a team excavated it and recovered skeletal remains, coins, medals and buttons of the 26th Native Infantry.
The remains have been the subject of dispute since, over identification, over what should be done with them, and over which government is responsible. The men were largely from what is now eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
The men were of a regiment that mutinied at Mian Mir near Lahore in 1857 and were taken while trying to cross the Ravi.
They were killed at Ajnala and put in a well, which was afterward built over. The remains were recovered in 2014 by a local excavation and identified from coins and buttons found with them.
The recovery was carried out by local people rather than by any archaeological body. What was done with the remains afterward, and what analysis was possible, has not been properly published.