Siege of Gurdas Nangal
Banda Singh and his followers held out in a walled compound for eight months, eating grass and bark, before surrendering. They were marched to Delhi and executed.
In 1715 the new emperor Farrukhsiyar ordered the governor of Lahore, Abdus Samad Khan, to crush Banda Singh once and for all. A great army cornered Banda Singh and his followers near Gurdaspur.
They took refuge in the haveli, the walled compound, of Duni Chand at the village of Gurdas Nangal and were besieged for eight months, from April to December. The Mughals cut off all supplies and diverted the canal around the compound. The defenders ate grass, leaves and the bark of trees, then their horses and the bones of the dead.
On 7 December 1715 the starving survivors were overpowered. Banda Singh and some 740 of his men were taken to Delhi in chains, paraded through the streets and executed, a hundred a day. None of them would save himself by conversion.
Banda Singh Bahadur's campaigns
1709 – 1716Same era
Misls, Mughals and Afghans, 1709 – 1799
Banda Singh's first great strike, on a wealthy town that was home to the executioners of Guru Tegh Bahadur and the younger Sahibzade.
Banda Singh avenged Pir Budhu Shah, who had been killed by Sadhaura's governor for helping Guru Gobind Singh.
The peasant army of Banda Singh routed the Sirhind army and killed Wazir Khan, the man who had executed the Guru's younger sons. Sirhind fell two days later.
The emperor himself marched against the Sikh capital. A Sikh named Gulab Singh put on Banda Singh's clothes and was captured in his place while Banda slipped away.
Nadir Shah crushed the Mughal army in a few hours, then sacked Delhi and carried off the Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor.
Chhota GhallugharaMay – June 1746 · About 7,000 Sikhs killed and 3,000 executed (traditional figures)The 'Lesser Holocaust'. To avenge his brother's death, Lakhpat Rai hunted down Sikhs in the Kahnuwan swamps. Thousands were killed and captives were beheaded in Lahore.
The only time Abdali was beaten in a pitched battle in India. Sikh bands attacked his retreating columns.
Baba Deep Singh, in his seventies, marched from Damdama to free the desecrated Harmandir Sahib and was killed near its precinct.