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Nine heritage wells dumped and concealed under tonnes of refuse and debris have thrown up surprises for the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) over the past month. While three of the revived wells have sprung up fresh potable water, the one near Delhi Gate had a sizeable number of live ammunition and explosives that archaeologists feel could be from the Colonial period or as late as 2003 when the Indian Army handed over the premises to the ASI for its upkeep. “The wells were almost lost due to decades of neglect but with the launch of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, we decided to clean up the garbage dumps.
In the meantime, we were also facing an acute shortage of water to keep the sprawling gardens and lawns of the Fort green. It was around July last year when, in a meeting with former Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung, we came up with the idea of reviving the old water bodies on the Red Fort premises,” said T R Sharma, Regional Director (North), ASI.
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On February 4, when some labourers were desilting the well behind what used to be the Army cantonment, from among heaps of plastic and garbage emerged two corroded metal boxes. As the senior ASI officials were called in and the boxes opened, a batch of 44 live and 87 empty cartridges was found. The next day, as the labourers returned to work, another box was discovered, but panic struck the workers as smoke started billowing out. The Delhi Police and the National Security Guards (NSG) were called in and an unmanned robotic vehicle covered with a bomb blanket extricated live hand grenades from the spot.
ASI officials said the well has since been out of bounds to them and the area is set to remain cordoned off till the NSG gives a nod that it is safe for further excavation. “It is right next to the cantonment and in a rush, someone must not have bothered to dispose it properly,” said an official posted at the Fort. Another official said that according to preliminary reports, the ammunition discovered so far point to a possibility that they were manufactured and used during the Colonial period when the Fort was used as a garrison.
“It is only once we have access to the well and some of the associated evidences around it such as stones, batteries or just the soil, that the time period can be determined through carbon dating or other scientific methods,” added Sharma.
Meanwhile, desilting work on the other wells is underway. “One well that connects to an adjoining baoli has sprung up pure and potable water. Such wells are set to make the Red Fort self-sufficient in its water requirement,” the official said.
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