The Company decided to use new Enfield Rifle instead of old Brown Bess gun in December, 1856. The training for the use of this rifle was organized in Dum Dum, Ambala, and Sialkot. The rifle needed an extraordinary kind of loading of a cartridge in the magazine and hence the soldiers while in the ensuing fight, had to bite off the outer covering of the cartridge while loading it down into the rifle’s muzzle. The cartridge was rumoured to have been greased with animal fat (Pig fat and Cow fat). Army Commanders refused rumours without any cross checking, but the soldiers were of the view that this was an intended act of the British with the aim to besmirch their religion. This became the immediate cause first Independence Struggle of India in 1857. ....Read more