تحفة النظار في غرايب الامصار وعجايب الاسفار 6.5.4

6.5.4

The reason for this was that they used to write missives reviling and insulting him, seal them and inscribe them, “By the hand of the Master of the World, none but he may read this.” They then threw them into the audience-hall at night, and when the sultan broke the seal he found them full of insults and abuse. He decided to lay Delhi in ruins, and having bought from all the inhabitants their houses and dwellings and paid them the price of them, he commanded them to move to Dawlat Abad. They refused, and his herald was sent to proclaim that no person should remain in the city after three nights. The majority complied with the order, but some of them hid in the houses. The sultan ordered a search to be made for any persons remaining in the town, and his slaves found two men in the streets, one a cripple and the other blind. They were brought before him and he gave orders that the cripple should be flung from a mangonel and the blind man dragged from Delhi to Dawlat Abad, a distance of forty days’ journey. He fell to pieces on the road and all of him that reached Dawlat Abad was his leg. When the sultan did this, every person left the town, abandoning furniture and possessions, and the city remained utterly deserted.