Battle of Karnal
Nadir Shah crushed the Mughal army in a few hours, then sacked Delhi and carried off the Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor.
Nadir Shah had come through the Punjab almost unopposed. At Karnal his musketeers and swivel guns destroyed a far larger Mughal army. In Delhi a massacre followed, and he marched home through the Punjab with the treasure of the Mughals.
The defeat showed how weak the Mughal empire had become, and the Punjab's chaos over the next half century, the age of Abdali and the misls, began here.
Same 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.
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.
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.