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I am going through old English speaking newspapers and found the following from a newspaper called "THE PIONEER" that was published in Allahabad, India on August the 11th, 1876:

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From what I can tell it reads:

We have just learnt that a [?] took place in the Central Jail, Lahore, on the 6th instant, afternoon : one prisoner has been severely injured.

I have no idea what word [?] could be, any idea what it could be?

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    I'm guessing "fracas" from the context.
    – KillingTime
    Commented Oct 11, 2022 at 10:34
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    And it is italicised as fracas being a loan word.
    – Weather Vane
    Commented Oct 11, 2022 at 10:41
  • Ah thank you that makes sense, I didn't know fracas could be used in this context. Looking at merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fracas gives examples like "Two people who were injured in the fracas were taken to a hospital by paramedics." The italics does also make sense since the etymology of the word appears to be Italian. Feel free to leave that as an answer.
    – A Dark Divided Gem
    Commented Oct 11, 2022 at 10:46

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Thought I would tidy up this question with a self answer thanks to the comments to my question.

Thanks for @KillingTime for the suggestion of Fracas which was upvoted multiple times and I am happy to accept as the answer. It makes sense in the context of the sentence and the end of the word matches with the more visible characters.

Also thanks to @Weather-Vane for pointing out the reason why the word was italicised was because it was a loan word. This also fit with the suggested word since its etymology appears to be Italian and may not be well known in India.

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