The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c20.213

v3.c20.213

A recrudescence of turbulence among the Hindus of the Doāb, who had entirely closed the roads between Bengal and Delhi, necessitated measures of repression and precaution, and all important towns and villages in this region were granted as fiefs to powerful nobles, who cleared the jungles which harboured gangs of brigands, slew large numbers of Hindus and enslaved their wives and children. Balban himself remained for many months in the districts of Patiyālī, Kampil, Bhojpur, and Jalālī, extirpated all highway robbers, built forts at those places, garrisoned them with Afghāns, who received lands in their vicinity for their maintenance, and by these measures secured the tranquillity of the roads between Delhi and Bengal for a century.