Tadhkirah i Anand-Ram “Mukhlish” 4.7

4.7

On the 1st of Muharram, A.H. 1152 (30th March, 1739), writers were appointed to levy ransom from the inhabitants under the orders of Tahmasp Khan Wakilu-s Saltanat, and lay it before the Shah; but, in order that the inhabitants might not be completely ruined, nobles of both States were directed to superintend the settlement of the ransom in the hall of justice, where all might be spectators. The town now offered a strange spectacle. Emissaries of the kotwal and Persian nasakchis wandered from house to house and from street to street, to take inventories of the property, and enforce the appearance of the citizens, so that the sum to be contributed by each individual might be fixed according to his means. It was the wish of the Shah that the townspeople should be preserved from violence and treated with lenity. * * Unoffending people, high and low, rich and poor, were compelled day after day to appear in the hall of justice, where they were kept from morn till night, often later, and then departed, speculating in their wretchedness on what the morrow might bring forth, and wondering to find themselves still alive. Mir Waris and Khwaja Rahmatu-llah openly, and two other persons in secret, had conspired to effect their destruction, and acted as delators. Without ever arriving at the truth, their calumnies were accepted as such. They forgot that they would reap what they sowed, feared neither God nor man, and maltreated the people.