Lehal Library

Ahmed Shah Abdali 145 losses and, though they were strong enough to inflict severe chastisement on isolated bands of Sikhs (as they did a year later), they were no longer strong enough to question the might of the Dal Khalsa in the plains of the Punjab. It could be said that the battle of Panipat which was fought between the Marathas and the Afghans was really won by the Sikhs. After their victory, the Afghans turned on Ala Singh of Patiala, who had sold provisions to the Marathas at Panipat. They sacked Barnala, terrified Ala Singh and compelled him to pay tribute. Ala Singh barely saved himself from excommunication by pleading with Jassa Singh Ahluwalia. In March 1761 Abdali began his homeward march. As soon as he crossed the Suclej, the Sikhs closed in on him. The booty-laden and battle-weary Afghans could do little against bands of twenty or thirty horsemen who would suddenly appear from nowhere, discharge their muskets, and gallop away into the wilderness. Every night Abdali had to throw up mud embankments and have his camp guarded by chains of sentries. Every night Sikh bands broke through and turned the Afghan's dreams into a nightmare. It continued in this way right up to the banks of the Indus. They lightened AbdaJi of much of his spoils and liberated over two thousand Hindu women he was taking to stock Afghan harems.51 When Abdali had been seen across the Indus, the Sikhs turned back to expel the garrisons he had left behind. The first encounter was with Mirza Jan (who was killed) and later with Nuruddin Bamezei, who had been deputed by Abdali to help Obed Khan, the governor of the Punjab, in dealing with the Sikhs. The Bamezei could get no further than the Chenab. Charhat Singh Sukerchakia harassed him all along his march and finally drove him to seek shelter in the fort of Sialkot. The Sardar invested Sialkot and only raised the siege when the Afghans agreed to depart in peace. Rao, cldeSl son of Peshwa Balaji Rao. See H. R. Gupta, Marathas and Panip<u, Oiapter x.ix. 31 H. R. Gupta, Histarj of the Sikhs, I, 150; Ganda Singh, Ahmed Shiih Dumini, p. 264.