1 -^
2 4 THE SIKHS DEFEATED AND PROSCRIBED. A. D. 1744-45.
3 with ravaging the open country, approached the sacred
4 reservoir of the Sikhs at Umritsur and maintained them-
5 selves in that vicinity. The different associations were
6 united by common interest, no less than by the profession
7 of a ne^v faith ; and a system of general confederation
8 for defence, or for operations requiring more than single
9 efforts, was early arranged between the chiefs.
10 The evil had spread and had acquired some head be-
11 fore the attention of the Governor Yuheea Khan was
12 sufficiently roused to induce him to make an exertion to
13 put it down. At length, however, his revenue failing
14 from these disorders, he sent out a small detachment of
15 government troops under command of Jusput Raee,
16 brother of his Dewan or prime minister, Lukhput
17 Raee. They proceeded first against a body of insurgent
18 Sikhs who were devastating the country, and driving off
19 the flocks and herds in the vicinity of Yumeenabad,
20 which lies to the North of Labor. The detachment was
21 overpowered, and Jusput Raee being slain, his men
22 dispersed. Lukhput Raee Dewan, however, hastened
23 from Labor to avenge his brother's death, and the insur-
24 gents retreated before him into the north eastern corner of
25 the Punjab, where he inflicted on them a severe chastise-
26 ment. The Dewan brought back with him many prison-
27 ers, whose heads were struck off' without remorse in the
28 Ghora-Nuklias, or horse market, outside the city wall of
29 jLahor. The spot is now called by the Sikhs " Shuheed-
30 ffunj," the place of martyrs, in memory of this event,
31 and a sumadh or tomb has been erected there in honor of
32 the Bhaee Jaroo Singh, which marks the site. After
33 this success a proclamation was issued in the name of
34 the Governor Yuheea Khan, denouncing death to all