SARDHANA  , a

town of British India, in Meerut district of the United Provinces, 12 M. by rail N.W. of Meerut . Pop . (1901), 12,467 . Though now a decayed place, Sardhana is historically famous as the residence of the Begum Samru (d . 1836) . This extraordinary woman was a Mussulman married to Reinhardt or Sombre (Samru), the perpetrator of the massacre of British prisoners at Patna in 1763 . On his death in 1778 she succeeded to the command of his mercenary troops . Ultimately she was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church, and bequeathed an immense fortune to charitable and religious uses . She built in Sardhana a Roman Catholic cathedral, a college for training priests, and a handsome palace .