Zakariya Khan
Mughal governor of Lahore who put a price on Sikh heads, executed Bhai Mani Singh and Bhai Taru Singh, and in 1733 tried to buy peace by offering the Sikhs a jagir and the title of Nawab.
Zakariya Khan was the Mughal governor of Lahore from 1726 to 1745, the son of the previous governor Abdus Samad Khan, under whom Banda Singh had been captured. He was an able administrator but devoted much of his rule to the extermination of the Sikhs.
He set prices on Sikh heads, rewarded informers and sent mobile columns into the countryside to hunt Sikhs down. When this failed, in 1733 he offered the Khalsa a jagir and the title of Nawab, which went to Kapur Singh, but the peace did not last. In 1738 he had Bhai Mani Singh executed, and in 1745 Bhai Taru Singh's scalp removed.
He is said to have asked his officials how the Sikhs survived, and been told they lived on grass and leaves, and to have been told by Nadir Shah that they would one day rule the land. He died in 1745.
Connected
Scribe of the final Guru Granth Sahib at Damdama and later head granthi of the Harmandir Sahib, cut apart joint by joint in Lahore.
A young farmer who fed Sikhs hiding in the forests. Ordered to cut his hair and convert, he refused and his scalp was removed in Lahore in 1745.
Accepted a Mughal title in 1733 while fanning the horses of the sangat, then organised the Khalsa into the Budha Dal and Taruna Dal.
A farmer of the village of Wan who sheltered Sikhs on the run; when Zakariya Khan's troops came for him in 1726 he and some two dozen companions fought them to the death.
Minister of the Lahore governors who, after Sikhs killed his brother Jaspat Rai in battle, swore to wipe out the Sikhs and led the Chhota Ghallughara of 1746, banning even the word 'Guru'.