Bhai Mehtab Singh and Bhai Sukha Singh avenge the desecration of Sri Harmandir Sahib

Who: Massa Ranghar (Masse Khan Ranghar), a Ranghar landlord from a village near Amritsar, made kotwal (chief police officer) of Amritsar by Zakariya Khan, the Mughal governor of Lahore from 1726 to 1745. Against him stood Bhai Mehtab Singh of Mirankot, near Amritsar, and Bhai Sukha Singh of Mari Kamboki, both of the jatha of Sardar Shiam Singh (the name the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism gives; Panthic.org names no leader), then camped at Jaipur in Rajasthan.

What: Zakariya Khan's harsh measures had driven most Sikh fighting bands away from Amritsar. Massa Ranghar was given the city with orders to stop Sikhs visiting Sri Harmandir Sahib or bathing in the sarovar. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says he stationed himself inside the Harimandar, the sanctum in the middle of the sarovar, and caroused there with women of ill repute. Sikh accounts add that he drank and smoked while dancing girls performed.

News of the sacrilege reached the jatha at Jaipur. Mehtab Singh vowed to avenge it, and Sukha Singh went with him. Finding the approaches guarded, the two disguised themselves as revenue officials bringing in tax money. Sikh accounts say their bags held broken earthenware made to look like coins. Inside, as Massa bent over the "money", Mehtab Singh cut off his head with a sword while Sukha Singh stood guard at the door. They escaped on horseback before the soldiers understood what had happened. The Encyclopaedia of Sikhism dates the killing to 11 August 1740.

Zakariya Khan was furious and ordered village headmen around Amritsar to find the culprits. In 1745, five years later, Mehtab Singh was arrested at his village after an informer reported him. He was taken to Lahore and put to death on a charkhi, a pair of wheels set with sharp spikes.

Where: Sri Harmandir Sahib, Amritsar. The two Sikhs set out from Jaipur in Rajasthan, and Mehtab Singh was executed at Lahore.

Why it mattered: Sikhs remember the killing as the Khalsa answering beadbi at its holiest shrine while the state held the city. Panthic.org presents it as proof that "Sikhs do not tolerate desecration of their holy places". It belongs to the years of Zakariya Khan's campaign: SikhRI records that in 1737 he taxed the Divali gathering at Amritsar, after which Bhai Mani Singh was arrested and executed, and that in 1739 he offered rewards for Sikhs taken or killed.

The story was remembered again in 1984. A biography of Major General Shahbeg Singh by Dr G.S. Grewal, titled Shaheed General Shabeg Singh, says his family traced its lineage to Bhai Mehtab Singh, and that he threw himself into setting up the defences of the Golden Temple complex against the Government's attack in 1984.