Cite
MLA
“Sikh Conquest of Rawalpindi.” Hindu History, 2026, https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/sikh-conquest-of-rawalpindi-1767/. Accessed .
APA
Hindu History. (2026). Sikh Conquest of Rawalpindi. Retrieved , from https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/sikh-conquest-of-rawalpindi-1767/
Gujjar Singh occupied Rawalpindi and brought the Gakhar, Janjua and Awan chiefs of the Potohar under Sikh rule, placing Milkha Singh Thepuria in charge of the town.
01Across the Jhelum
The country between the Jhelum and the Indus is dry, cut by ravines, and was held in the 1760s by Gakhar, Janjua and Awan chiefs in their own strongholds. After Rohtas fell in 1764, Gujjar Singh Bhangi worked steadily through this tract, taking submission from the Gakhar chief Muqarrab Khan and others. Rawalpindi itself was then little more than a cluster of huts round the dera of the Rawal ascetics, but it held the crossroads.
02A Sikh town
Gujjar Singh and his son Sahib Singh took Rawalpindi in the winter of 1767 and left Milkha Singh Thepuria to hold it. Milkha Singh invited traders from Jhelum, Bhera and other towns to settle, and under him the village grew into a market town. The Bhangis held the Potohar until Ranjit Singh absorbed their lands early in the next century.
The modern city of Rawalpindi grew from the market that Milkha Singh founded after the conquest of 1767.
