Banda Singh Bahadur captured at Gurdas Nangal

Who: Banda Singh Bahadur and the Sikhs of his main column, 740 of whom reached Delhi as prisoners; against them the Mughal governor of Lahore, Abd us-Samad Khan, his son Zakariya Khan, and other imperial commanders acting for Emperor Farrukh-siyar.

What: Bahadur Shah died on 28 February 1712, and the war of succession gave Banda a little respite. Farrukh-siyar, who took the throne in 1713, stepped up the campaign. Banda had reoccupied Sadhaura and Lohgarh in the plains, but the Sikhs were hounded out of them. By 1715 his main column was shut up at Gurdas Nangal, in a walled compound said to belong to Bhai Duni Chand. Hari Ram Gupta puts the defenders at about 1,250 against some 35,000 imperial troops.

The siege lasted eight months. Supplies ran out and the Sikhs ate animal flesh raw for want of firewood, then leaves, bark and ground bones. The Muslim diarist Khafi Khan wrote, "Many died of dysentery and privation." On 7 December 1715 the royal armies broke through and captured Banda and his famished companions. Some prisoners were killed on the spot and their heads mounted on spears. The rest were paraded through Lahore and sent on to Delhi, with Zakariya Khan rounding up Sikhs from the villages along the way.

Where: Gurdas Nangal, a village about six kilometres from Gurdaspur in Punjab.

Why it mattered: The fall of Gurdas Nangal ended the campaign that began at Samana in 1709 and broke the first Khalsa state. Deprived of a single commander, the Panth scattered into small jathas and took refuge in hills, forests and deserts. Those guerrilla bands, which kept up the fight through the worst years, were the roots of the misls that later formed the Dal Khalsa. Banda's capture led directly to the march to Delhi and his Shaheedi in June 1716.