Page 205 - Lohgarh

Battle of Gurdas Nangal and Arrest of Banda Singh Bahadur w 205

had the Mughals accepted the Sikhs’ offer, they would not have killed
more than half of the Sikhs, even after their surrender? Fifthly, how
could the Sikhs have offered to agree to the decision of the Emperor
about their fate after their arrest, especially from that Emperor who
wanted to annihilate them? Hence, this is just a propaganda of the
Mughal. The truth is that the Sikhs in the Fortress had become so week
due to hunger that they were unable to make any movement, and,
when there was no movement for several days, the Mughal army
attacked and captured the feeble and half-dead Sikhs there.
Muhammed Qasim Aurangabadi has given the true account of the
arrest of Banda Singh and the Sikhs. He says that when there was no
movement within the Fortress for so many days, the Mughal soldiers
climbed the ladders, scaled the walls, and entered the Fortress. Inside
the Fortress, due to hunger and other difficulties, the limbs of the Sikhs
had become powerless to act or even to make any movement; hence
they had lost strength to fight because they did to have power to even
hold swords. So much so that they could not even speak any word.
Thus, to say that Banda Singh and the Sikhs surrendered is baseless.

Banda Singh was Immediately Fettered
As soon as the Mughals identified Banda Singh (who himself was almost
unconscious), they immediately fettered him; others too were tied with
ropes. All the Sikh prisoners were taken to Lahore under heavy army
escort. At Lahore, they were paraded through the streets of the city;
the local Muslim residents threw bricks, stones and other articles on
them; this hurt several Sikh prisoners. When the prisoners’ procession
was passing by the residence of Bayzid Khan (former chief of Jammu),
his mother threw a big stone at them, killing one of them. So, after
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this, the Governor of Lahore ordered covering of the faces of the
prisoners with sacks.
After the procession, these Sikh prisoners were kept in shackles,
under strict surveillance of the Mughal army. Their feet too had been
fettered, and, their wastes had been tied with ropes; they were further
tied in batches of 2s and 3s, and then they were again tied down on the