in the campaign “Suppression of the 1860-1861 uprisings, the execution of Baysangur, and the shooting of the zikrists near Shali (1860-1864)”
In early June 1860, troops, Cossacks, and militia were sent into Benoy, where the deported families had returned without permission, led by Baysangur of Benoy, head of that society under Imam Shamil (the leader of the highlanders’ resistance to the Russian conquest)[1]. On 28 September 1860 the troops took Benoy by storm: the historians Ya. Z. Akhmadov and E. Kh. Khasmagomadov write - "the desperate resistance... was quickly suppressed by artillery fire"; the historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova dates the taking of the aul to 26 September and adds: "The retaliatory repressions were directed at the entire population of the insurgent districts"[1][2]. In December 1860 - January 1861 General Kundukhov's operation swept through Ichkeria - ten infantry battalions, four hundred Cossacks, and seven hundred Chechen militia: "'flying' detachments were widely used to pursue the insurgents, while the main mass of the troops was engaged in 'combing' the terrain"[1]. From spring until late autumn 1861, according to the historian Z. Kh. Ibragimova, "on the territory of Chechnya, from the Assa river to the aul of Gekhi, a military-punitive expedition operated... evicting the Chechens by force of arms into the foothills and onto the plain"[2]. In autumn 1861 three detachments forced the last leaders of the uprising to surrender - an imperial report of 22 December 1861 sums it up: "The persistent actions of our troops in the severe winter of last year... compelled the Ichkerians to declare unconditional submission"[3].