The Cellular Jail, also known as KALA PANI (Hindi for black waters), was a colonial prison in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. The prison was used by the British especially to exile political prisoners to the remote archipelago. Many notable independence activists such as Batukeshwar Dutt, Yogendra Shukla among others and the famous Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, were imprisoned here during the struggle for India’s independence. Today, the complex serves as a national memorial monument. Although the prison complex itself was constructed between 1896 and 1906, the British had been using the Andaman Islands as a prison since the days in the immediate aftermath of the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. The construction of the prison started in 1896 and was completed in 1906