Later Mughals v2.c18.s5.4

v2.c18.s5.4

We have seen that on the 12th the Persian scouts had advanced 32 miles from their own camp and secured news of Saadat Khan's position at Panipat. But the intelligence department of the Indian army seems to have been hopelessly careless or inefficient. Saadat Khan had not found out the enemy's whereabouts, nor taken care to protect his baggage train against a possible attack. The Emperor himself at Karnal had been equally careless. As Ghulam Husain writes, "None in the imperial camp knew of the near arrival of Nadir from Lahor, till one day some men of the corn-dealers (banjaras) who had gone six or eight miles outside to bring in fodder, came back wounded and panic-striken after a sudden encounter with the Persian scouts, and the cry ran through the encampment 'Nadir has come! Nadir has come!' A mortal fear seized the army and the longing for Saadat Khan's arrival became keener." [i. 96.]