India, Oct. 3 -- The echoes of Delhi's colonial past have grown louder in recent months, centred on the memory of a prison where rebels, freedom fighters and conspirators were once locked away - and executed.

On a patch of land beside the mortuary of Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC) in central Delhi, an unmarked rectangle of tangled undergrowth hides what may be the last physical traces of the Old Central Jail. In 2019, construction workers digging on the campus stumbled upon an underground wall. Suspecting it to be part of the jail's foundations, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was alerted and the Public Works Department (PWD) told to halt work.

But since then - silence. Today, the ground appears untouched by spade or story...