SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 23 September 2025, Shift 3 · General Awareness · Question 21 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 13 September 2026.

Where this paper and its answers come from

SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

The Chapekar Brothers (Damodar, Balkrishna, and Vasudeo) are remembered for assassinating a British official in response to injustices during the plague epidemic in which Indian city?

(a)Mumbai
(b)Delhi
(c)Pune
(d)Chennai

Answer

Why

Correct — C. Plague struck Pune in 1896–97, and a Special Plague Committee headed by W. C. Rand enforced harsh measures there, including searches of homes.

On 22 June 1897, the day Pune celebrated Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, the Chapekar brothers shot Rand on the Ganeshkhind road. He died of his wounds on 3 July 1897 → option (c).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Mumbai — Bombay (now Mumbai) was also hit by plague, which is the trap. But Rand's plague committee, and the 22 June 1897 shooting, were in Pune.
(b)
Delhi — Delhi has no part in this case. The Chapekars, Rand and the 1897 plague measures all belong to Pune, then in the Bombay Presidency.
(d)
Chennai — Chennai (then Madras) has no part in this case. Rand was shot on the Ganeshkhind road in Pune, where his committee ran the plague measures.

Concept

The bubonic plague of 1896–97 led the colonial government to impose strict measures in Pune: inspection of homes, removal of the sick and segregation, enforced with the help of soldiers.

Anger at these methods led the Chapekar brothers to shoot the head of the plague committee, W. C. Rand. His military escort, Lieutenant Ayerst, was killed on the spot.

Pune lay in the Bombay Presidency, whose capital, Bombay, was also struck by the plague. That is why Mumbai is the tempting wrong answer.

Key facts

22 June 1897: W. C. Rand, head of Pune's Special Plague Committee, was shot by the Chapekar brothers.
Rand's escort, Lieutenant Ayerst, was killed on the spot, and Rand died of his wounds on 3 July 1897.
The Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 was passed to deal with the bubonic plague in the Bombay Presidency.

Study next

Bal Gangadhar Tilak's sedition trial of 1897Early revolutionary societies in Maharashtra, such as Abhinav BharatThe Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897

Common traps

Picking Mumbai because the plague also hit Bombay. The committee Rand headed, and the shooting, were in Pune.
Confusing this case with later attacks on British officials, such as the Muzaffarpur bombing of 1908.

Here the Chapekar case is asked by city, with the plague and the three brothers' names given in the stem.

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: History — all 218 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.