Sikh Holocaust of 1762 - The Holocaust of 1762

The Holocaust of 1762

When Ahmad Shah Durrani returned for a sixth campaign of conquest (his fifth being in 1759-61), Sikh fighters were investing the town of Jandiala, 18 kilometers (11 mi) east of Amritsar. The place was the home of Aqil Das, the head of the Nirinjania sect, a friend of the Afghans, and an inveterate foe of the Sikhs.

Aqil Das sent messengers to Durrani pleading for his help against the Sikhs. The Afghan forces hurried to Jandiala, but by the time they arrived the siege had been lifted and the besiegers were gone.

The Sikh fighters had retreated with a view to taking their families to the safety of the Hariyana desert to the east before returning to confront the invader. When the Afghan leader came to know of the whereabouts of the Sikhs, he sent word ahead to his allies in Malerkotla and Sirhind to stop their advance. Durrani then set about on a rapid march, covering the distance of 240 kilometers (150 mi), including two river crossings, in less than forty-eight hours.

In the twilight of dawn, Durrani and his allies surprised the Sikhs, who numbered about 50,000, most of them noncombatants. It was decided that the Sikh fighters would form a cordon around the slow-moving baggage train consisting of women, children and old men. They would then make their way to the desert in the south-west by the town of Barnala, where they expected their ally Alha Singh of Patiala to come to their rescue.

An eye witness account describes the Sikhs. “Fighting while moving and moving while fighting, they kept the baggage train marching, covering it as a hen covers its chicks under its wings.” More than once, the troops of the invader broke the cordon and mercilessly butchered the women, children and elderly inside, but each time the Sikh warriors regrouped and managed to push back the attackers.

By early afternoon, the large fighting cavalcade reached a big pond, the first they had come across since morning. Suddenly the bloodletting ceased as the two forces, man and beast, resorted to the water to quench their thirst and relax their tired limbs.

From that point on, the two forces went their separate ways. The Afghan forces, who had inflicted terrible human losses on the Sikh nation, and had in turn suffered many killed and wounded, were exhausted, having not had any rest in two days. While the living remainder of the Sikhs proceeded into the semi-desert toward Barnala, Ahmad Shah Durrani's army returned to the capital of Lahore with hundreds of Sikhs in chains. From the capital, Durrani returned to Amritsar and blew up the Harimandir Sahib which since 1757 the Sikhs had rebuilt. As an act of intended sacrilege, the pool around it was filled with cow carcasses.

It was estimated that 25,000 to 30,000 Sikhs were killed on that horrific day of 5 February 1762. As it is doubtful their entire population would have numbered 100,000, it means one third to a half of all Sikhs perished. The Sikhs were not the only people who were targeted; the Mughals also captured Hindus, especially intellects and those who sheltered the Sikhs.

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