Colonial officials hanged suspects and then cited the plot they claimed to foil

Evidence

During June and July, he had over 20 men hanged, in many cases presiding over the trials himself. Tayler insisted that disturbances in Patna and the surrounding areas were the result of the plotting of ‘an anti-christian crusade’ by a well-organized network of Indian followers of Abdul Wahab. — Julia Stephens, The Phantom Wahhabi, 44

Categorization

• SHARE: A precise, grisly datapoint — a judge hanging his own defendants — worth sending to anyone who reads colonial South Asian history.