The History of Fīrūz Shāh (Baranī) 5.12

5.12

When intelligence of this outbreak of the new Muhammadans reached Dehli, the crafty cruelty which had taken possession of 'Alau-d din induced him to order that the wives and children of all the mutineers, high and low, should be cast into prison. This was the beginning of the practice of seizing women and children for the faults of men. Up to this time no hand had ever been laid upon wives and children on account of men's misdeeds. At this time also another and more glaring act of tyranny was committed by Nusrat Khan, the author of many acts of violence at Dehli. His brother had been murdered, and in revenge he ordered the wives of the assassins to be dishonoured and exposed to most disgraceful treatment; he then handed them over to vile persons to make common strumpets of them. The children he caused to be cut to pieces on the heads of their mothers. Outrages like this are practised in no religion or creed. These and similar acts of his filled the people of Dehli with amazement and dismay, and every bosom trembled. In the same year that Ulugh Khan and Nusrat Khan were sent to Gujarat, Zafar Khan was sent to Siwistan, which Saldi, with his brother and other Mughals, had seized upon.