Battle of Panjtar

01The khan of Panjtar

Panjtar, in the hills of the Yusufzai country north of the Kabul river, had been Syed Ahmad’s headquarters in the late 1820s, and its chief Fateh Khan had fought beside him. After Balakot he went on harrying the Sikh posts in the plain. In 1836 his raids grew bolder, and Hari Singh Nalwa, governor of Peshawar, led an army against him.

02Submission and defiance

The Sikh force attacked Panjtar in November 1836, and the tribesmen broke and fled to the hills with many killed. Fateh Khan was made to sign a document of submission to the Sikh state. As soon as the army left, he behaved as though he had never signed, and the raids began again. The Maharaja later sent Gulab Singh to settle the country, and the Yusufzai withdrew into the mountains. Within months Nalwa was dead, killed at Jamrud in April 1837.

Dynasty · 1799–1849 CEThe Sikh Empire (Sarkar-i-Khalsa)Ranjit Singh took Lahore in 1799 and was proclaimed Maharaja of the Punjab in 1801. He united the Sikh misls into one state, pushed the Afghans back beyond the Khyber, and built the last great Indian army to face the British; ten years after his death the empire was annexed in 1849.Read →