The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c25.166

v3.c25.166

I‘timād Khān could not, however, entirely seclude him, and he used to amuse himself by hatching, with those officers who gained access to him, boyish plots for the assassination of the regent, and by drawing his sword and severing the soft stem of a plantain tree, with the childish boast that he could thus cleave in two his tyrant. All this was reported to I‘timād Khān, who, though he well knew that the boy was incapable of any desperate deed, began to fear lest some officer should earn the king’s gratitude and the coveted post of regent by giving effect to wishes so unreservedly expressed. He therefore, in July, 1562, caused Ahmad to be assassinated, and his body to be flung out of the citadel into the open space between the river and the house of a noble entitled Vajīh-ul-Mulk Abūjī Tānk, and when it was discovered gave out that Ahmad Shāh must have gone secretly to Vajīh-ul-Mulk’s house on some amorous adventure and have been slain by some injured person before he could be recognised.