Ahmednagar Fort The Ahmednagar Fort is located in the heart of the city of Ahmednagar , Maharashtra . It was the headquarters of the Ahmednagar Sultanate . In 1803 it was taken by the British in during the Second Anglo - Maratha War . Later it was used by the British Raj as a prison . Currently the fort is under the administration of the Armoured Corps of the Indian Army . Major features . In 1803 the Ahmednagar Fort was round in appearance , with twenty - four bastions , one large gate , and three small sally ports . It had a glacis , no covered way ; a ditch , revetted with stone on both sides , about wide , with water all round , which only reached within 6 or of the top of the scarp ; long reeds grew in it all round . The berm was only about one yard wide . The rampart was of black hewn stone ; the parapet of brick in chunam , and both together appeared from the crest of the glacis to be only as high as the pole of a field - officer ' s tent . The bastions were all about 4½ feet higher ; they were round . One of them mounted eight guns " en barbet " : it pointed to the eastward ; all the rest had jingies , four in each . In 1803 two guns were visible in each bastion , and 200 were said to be ready in the fort to be mounted . A gunshot to the west of the fort was the Pettah of Ahmednagar . The main gate of the fort faced the pettah , and was defended by a small half - circular work , with one traverse and several little towers for men . There is was a wooden bridge over the ditch , which could be taken away in time of war , but it was not a drawbridge . It was reported that an iron trough as large as the bridge , could be placed upon it , or on the supporters of it , and fill with charcoal or other combustibles , to which could be ignited as an enemy approached . A small river came from the northward , round the west side of the pettah , and passed to the southward of the fort . A nullah also passed from the northward , between the fort and a town called Bhingar , about a gunshot to the eastward , and joined the river . A potential defensive weakness was a little hill or rising ground close to and east of Bhingar , from which shot from siege guns could reach the fort . Two nills or covered aqueducts came from the hills , a mile or more to the north , passed through and supplied the pettah and the town , and then went into the fort , either under or through the ditch , into which the waste water fell . There were no passages across the ditch from the sally ports , and no part of the aqueducts appeared above the ditch . The nullah mentioned above , had steep banks and passed within 60 yards of the fort ; the aqueduct from Bhingar passed under it . There was no bridge or even a prominent crossing point at the nullah and hence no clearly defined route between the fort and the town of Bhingar . There were many small pagodas and mosques round the pettah and the fort , but none exactly between , or between the fort and Bhingar , or nearer to the fort than those towns . History . The fort was built by Malik Shah Ahmed ( after whom the city of Ahmednagar is named ) in 1427 CE . He was the first sultan of the Nizam Shahi dynasty and he built the fort to defend the city against invaders from neighbouring Idar . Initially it was made of mud but major fortification began in 1559 under Hussain Nizam Shah . It took four years and was finally finished in 1562 . In 1596 , Chand Bibi the queen regent successfully repulsed the Mughal invasion but when Akbar attacked again in 1600 the fort went to the Mughals . Aurangzeb died at Ahmednagar fort at the age of 88 on February 20 , 1707 . After Aurangzeb ' s death the fort passed to the Nizams in 1724 , to Marathas in 1759 and later the Scindia s in 1790 . During the period of instability in the Maratha Empire following the death of Madhavrao II , Daulat Scindia had the fort and its surrounding region ceded to him . In 1797 , he imprisoned Nana Phadanvis the Peshwa diplomat at Ahmednagar fort . In 1803 during the Second Anglo - Maratha War , Arthur Wellesley defeated the Maratha forces and the East India Company came into possession of the fort . It was used by the British Raj as a prison and this was were Jawaharlal Nehru , Abul Kalam Azad , Sardar Patel and other members of Indian National Congress were jailed for almost three years after they passed the Quit India Resolution . Jawaharlal Nehru wrote his popular book - the Discovery of India - while he was imprisoned at Ahmednagar fort . Currently the fort is under the administration of the Armoured Corps of the Indian Army .