New Delhi: You can immediately walk in the tunnel that goes from the Delhi assembly building to the Red Fortress or see the hanging room installed in England there.
Assembly plans to make this a tourist place.
The tunnel was reported to have been used by the British in the colonial era to carry prisoners, most of the nationalist revolutionary, to the building, which then functions as a court.
The hanger space is a site where the prisoners are hung to death.
The tunnel has three approaches, one towards the gallows, the other to the speaker seat where the Witness box has been, and the third to the red fortress.
Part of the tunnel to the witness box is still intact.
It’s about 15 feet long, six feet high and a four foot wide.
The floor is not paved and the walls are made of bricks.
The roof seems made with wood and stone.
The mouth tunnel open in the assembly hall and covered with a toughened glass panel.
No further excavation is possible because the tunnel is now blocked, maybe by Delhi and Sewerage alignment.
The Gallows area is located above the office space and can be accessed by the iron ladder.
Some revolutionaries are believed to have been executed there.
Stay close after independence.
Speaker RAM Niwas Goel said the tunnel and renovated hangers room will be disposed of for the public before August 15 next year.
“The visitors will be permitted only when the Assembly is not in the session,” he said.
The tunnel will not be renovated or further excavation occurs.
“We will let the community see it like that, but no visitors are allowed to go to the tunnel, just see it in his mouth,” Goel added.
Speakers say that the process of getting a historic site is ready to see the public has begun.
“The tender has floated and PWD will immediately start the work needed,” he said.
The historical significance of this tunnel has not been established but it is believed that it connects the court with a red fortress and is used to carry prisoners without exposing them to the public.
An India’s official archaeological survey said there was no such tunnel found in the red fortress.
The building, which currently accommodates Delhi legislature, was built in 1911 as the Central Legislative Assembly after a colonial capital shift from Kolkata to Delhi.
The legislature moved to the current parliamentary house in 1926 and the older building became a court.
The Assembly also prepares to offer other tourist attractions, such as displaying the history of digital freedom struggles.