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In 1799, after Tipu Sultan of Mysore was defeated and killed, Dhondiah Wagh(a former soldier of the Sultan) gathered a band of remnants and began raiding and illegally collecting taxes from Maratha and British territories around Mysore. Alarmed by this threat, Arthur Wellesley was given his first independent command and sent to eliminate Wagh.

After months of pursuit, Wellesley finally cornered him, personally leading a cavalry charge (the only time he did so in his career) at the Battle of Conagul, where Wagh was killed. According to Maratha chronicles, Wellesley kept Wagh's blood-stained mustache as a trophy.

Following the battle, Wellesley discovered Wagh's four-year-old son, Salabat Khan, abandoned in the camp. Demonstrating unexpected compassion, Wellesley took the boy under his protection, ensuring his education and maintenance. Before leaving for Europe in 1805, Wellesley set aside funds for the boy's upkeep and asked his friend, Purniah, the Dewan of Mysore, to watch over him.

True to this request, Salabat Khan was later employed as an officer in the Mysore state army, living until his untimely death from cholera in 1822.

Images- Battle of Conagul, Dhondiah Wagh's body in the background on the elephant's left

Dewan Purneah, 1801

Wellesley in India, 1804

At the Battle of Borodino on 7 September 1812, Prince Pyotr Bagration was mortally wounded while defending the critical earthen fortifications known as the Bagration flèches. Around midday, a French cannonball shattered, striking his left leg and breaking his tibia. To preserve troop morale, he initially refused to leave the battlefield despite heavy blood loss. Eventually evacuated, his wound quickly developed gangrene. Bagration refused a life-saving amputation and died on 24 September 1812. In 1839, his remains were reinterred on the Borodino battlefield.

The event gradually turned into a riot leading to 100 injuries and police having to break it up

Chattopadhyaya was arrested on 15 July 1937 during the Great Purge of Joseph Stalin. His name appeared on a death list among 184 other persons, which was signed on 31 August 1937 by Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Kliment Voroshilov, Andrei Zhdanov, and Lazar Kaganovich.

Even after a year fate was unknown to his family. On 10 July 1938, A.C.N Nambiar, Chattopadhyaya's brother-in-law, wrote to Nehru about the arrest. He replied on 21 July, agreeing to try to find out about Chattopadhyaya's fate.