In Indore, she gave birth to a girl who died soon after.
“After the birth of my child, I did not want to stay in Indore. I didn’t want to because the nurses killed the baby girl who was born,” Mumtaz Begum told the court.
A few months later, she fled to the northern Indian city of Amritsar, where her mother was born, but trouble followed.
She was also being watched there. Mumtaz Begum’s stepfather told the court that the Maharaja was crying and begging her to come back. But she refused and moved to Bombay, where the surveillance continued.
The court confirmed media speculation after the murder: the Maharaja’s representatives had indeed threatened Bawla with dire consequences if he continued to shelter Mumtaz Begum, but he had ignored the warnings.
Acting on a tip-off from Shafi Ahmed, the lone assailant nabbed at the scene, the Bombay police arrested seven men from Indore.
The investigation revealed connections to the Maharajah that were hard to ignore. Most of those arrested were employed in the princely state of Indore, applied for leave around the same time and were in Bombay at the time of the crime.
The assassination put the British government in a difficult position. Although it took place in Bombay, the investigation clearly showed that the plot was planned in Indore, which had strong connections with the British.
Calling it “a most inconvenient matter” for the British government, The New Statesman wrote that if it had been an insignificant state, “there would have been little cause for alarm”.
“But Indore was a powerful feudal lord of the Raj,” it said.
The British government initially tried to keep quiet about the assassination’s connection to Indore. But in private he discussed the matter with great anxiety, showing the connection between the Governments of Bombay and British India.
Bombay Police Commissioner Patrick Kelly told the British government that all the evidence “now points to a conspiracy hatched at or instigated from Indore to abduct Mumtaj (sic) through hired desperadoes”.
The government faced pressure from various sides. The wealthy Bawla Memon community, a Muslim community with roots in present-day Gujarat, raised the issue with the government. His fellow municipal officials mourned his death, saying “there must be something more behind the scenes.”
Indian lawmakers demanded answers in the upper house of British India’s legislature, and the matter was even debated in Britain’s House of Commons.
