Shivaji and His Times c14.s4: §6. Maratha plot to seize Bijapur
Shivaji and His Times c14.s4
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§6. Maratha plot to seize Bijapur
c14.s4.1
In this danger Siddi Masaud immediately asked for help from Shiva, as agreed upon. The Rajah sent six to seven thousand heavy cavalry to guard Bijapur. Masaud could not fully trust his ally, he asked the Maratha contingent to halt beside the stream of the village Itangihal (5 m. n. w. of the city), but they came nearer, encamped at Khanapura and Khusraupura, and demanded that one of the gates and one of the towers of the fort should be entrusted to them. Masaud wisely declined. Then they moved to Zuhrapura and encamped on the plain just outside the walls, thus increasing Masaud's suspicion. Soon the allies began to quarrel openly.* The Marathas were detected in trying to smuggle arms and men into the fort, by concealing the arms in sacks of grain and disguising the soldiers as drivers of the pack-oxen! Then Shiva threw off the mask. He began to plunder and devastate Adil-Shahi territory again. His men looted the suburbs of Bijapur,—Daulatpura (=Khawaspura), Khusraupura and Zuhrapura, and carried off the rich banias for ransom. Near the tomb of Shaikh Ahmad Khawas-Khani, they slew Ali Raza and wounded Siddi Yaqut. But when they reached the tomb of Ibrahim Adil Shah, west of the city, a shot from the fort-guns killed the Maratha commander and the men fled away. Masaud now made peace with Dilir Khan.
c14.s4.2
∗ "It is reported that Shivaji has in person plundered Shahpur, the suburbs of Bijapur, and had liked to have got into the royal city, the conquest whereof is his sole aim, lest it should fall into the Mughal's hands, and then he knows he could not long subsist." (Bombay to Surat, 4 April 1679, in *Orme MSS.* 116.)
c14.s4.3
A Mughal force was invited to Bijapur, royally welcomed, and sent off with a Bijapuri army under Venkatadri Murari (the confidant of the regent) and other officers, against the Marathas. They reached Tikota (13 miles w. of Bijapur), when spies brought the report that Shiva himself had arrived at Selgur (55 miles w. of Bijapur and the same distance east of Panhala) with 7 to 8 thousand men and wanted to make a night-attack on the Mughal or the Bijapuri army, whichever would advance first. But a new quarrel between Masaud and Sharza Khan now paralyzed the power of Bijapur. (B. S. 471—477.)