Deaths of Kharak Singh and Nau Nihal Singh

Who: Maharaja Kharak Singh; his son Kanwar Nau Nihal Singh, who had run the government since October 1839; Raja Dhian Singh Dogra, the chief minister; Mian Udham Singh, a son of Gulab Singh Dogra; and Dr Martin Honigberger, the court physician.

What: In October 1839 Kharak Singh's favourite, Chet Singh Bajwa, was killed in his presence by Dhian Singh's party (the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism gives 9 October, Khushwant Singh 8 October). Kharak Singh was left a virtual prisoner and Nau Nihal Singh took the reins of government. Kharak Singh fell ill in March 1840 and died on 5 November 1840. The Encyclopaedia reports that contemporary chroniclers said he was poisoned on Dhian Singh's orders; Khushwant Singh attributes his death to opium and drink. The same day, as Nau Nihal Singh returned from the cremation, the arch of the Roshnai Gate by the Hazuri Bagh fell on him. Udham Singh was killed and Dhian Singh and others were hurt. The prince was carried into the Fort. Honigberger found his head crushed and wrote that Dhian Singh kept the death secret for three days. The Encyclopaedia dates his death to 8 November and says chroniclers believed Dhian Singh's men finished him with stones inside the Fort. The artillery officer Colonel Gardner also called it a plot. The official British report called it an accident, and Khushwant Singh, who rejects Gardner's version, argues that the old gate had been shaken by hours of cannon fire and the weight of the crowd.

Where: Lahore: Kharak Singh's house in the city, the cremation ground beside Ranjit Singh's memorial near the Hazuri Bagh, and the Roshnai Gate by the Fort.

Why it mattered: The throne was left without an adult in the direct line. Dhian Singh summoned Sher Singh, but Nau Nihal Singh's mother, Chand Kaur, was proclaimed Maharani on 2 December 1840 as regent for his expected child. In January 1841 Sher Singh took Lahore after the Fort had been bombarded for two days, and Chand Kaur gave up her claim. Khushwant Singh calls Chet Singh's murder the first of a series of killings that became a regular feature of the Lahore Darbar.