This Banyan tree has been under arrest for over 100 years now

8 years ago

Image courtesy: tribune.pk

Few months back, a police official in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh got a goat arrested for an action of the animal that cannot be reasoned with.

And we thought that was the epitome of stupidity.

No it looks like there were equally ‘competent’ authorities in the past.

In Landi Kotal army cantonment area (now in Pakistan) under British India in 1898, an inebriated Brit ordered the detention of a Banyan ‘tree’.

So that it stopped moving around him.

British army officer James Squid thought the tree was moving around him. Squid immediately ordered his mess sergeant to chain the train in order ensure that it stopped lurching.

The tree has been ‘under arrest’ for almost over a century now. Some of the locals believed that the British tried to signal the people residing the area of consequences of disobeying them.

What ever the reason was, the captive tree has made the area a popular tourist destination today. Even today the tree stands chained with a board hanging from its branches that reads “I am under arrest”.