Page 47 - Lohgarh

Structure and Location of the Lohgarh Fort w 47

constructed, with objective to guide guerrilla Sikh fighters in the night
time, so that after making raids on Mughals camp, they could safely
retreat back to Fort. The cotton seeds were burnt in a small pond on
the tower, this process generated light, which was highly luminous and
could be seen from far distance. 52 bastions existed on the southern
side of the Fort, starting from Indri, Ladwa, bank of Yamuna and spreads
in district Yamuna Nagar. Most of the war between the Sikh and the
Mughal armies was fought in plain area where 52 bastions of Fort
Lohgarh existed.

The Eastern Side of the Fort

The Eastern side, which is the rear side of the Fort, is completely under
a forest cover, which is now declared as the National Forest Park and
now falls in the State of Himachal Pradesh. From Lohgarh Fort up to the
towns of Paonta Sahib and Nahan, there is a thick wooded forest having
bushes and sub-tropical grasses, where wild animals like bears, panthers,
leopards, and tigers were often spotted in those days, and, hunters
used to hunt them. At present all these wilds are kept protected in
hedge made of thorny steel wires and tourists usually visit them through
particular passages.
In those days, the approximate width of this forest was 8 km from
the wall of the Fort. There were many secret passages to reach Lohgarh
and were used for supplying essentials to the Sikh Army and in case of
siege they acted as safe exit routes. From these passages Banda Singh,
along with his troops, used to move towards Anandpur Sahib, Jammu
and Chamba hills and also to the plain areas of Punjab for assault on
Punjab cities. The Mughals were never aware of these routes. Moreover,
these routes were properly entrenched with dressed stones so that the
enemy could not take control of these passages. All the entry points
from the front side to the rear side of the Fort were highly protected
and Mughal siege was not possible from these directions of the Fort
because of the Markanda and Som Nadi rivers and highly steep abrupt
rise of hills from both sides. Only part of the front side, i.e. the southern
side was exposed to the enemy attack.On this side of the Sikh army