Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c13.s6.5

v1.c13.s6.5

Safdar Jang called Suraj Mal to Delhi for counsel and assistance. The Jat prince arrived and encamped near Kākāpahāri, some 14 miles from the city. With him came an agent of the Jaipur Rajah and Balu Jat, each at the head of a force. Jāvid Khan wished that these men should interview him first and negotiate with the Government through him, because in the past they used to solicit his patronage and court his favour. But as the wazir was now present at the capital, they did not take the eunuch as their mediator. It was then settled that Jāvid Khan should go to the wazir’s house and there the two together should grant interviews to Sural Mal and the others and settle their business with the Emperor. The 27th of August was fixed for the meeting. Jāvid Khan went to Safdar Jang’s house early in the day and the two breakfasted together. Suraj Mal came in the afternoon and the discussion was prolonged. After a while Safdar Jang led Javid Khan away by the hand to an alcove or bastion of the house and talked about Suraj Mal in privacy. Then Muhammad Ali Jārji and some other Turkish soldiers entered the alcove; the wazir rose up; Muhammad Ali stabbed Jāvid Khan in the liver from behind, crying out, “Take the fruit of your disloyalty,” the other men came up and finished the deed of blood. Then they severed his head and flung it amidst the eunuch’s retainers sitting down on the ground outside the wazir’s mansion, and his trunk on the sandy bank of the river. These men fled away in terror. The deed stifled all hostile movements by its very audacity. All the stores and treasuries of the murdered man within and outside the fort were sealed up and his various offices were at once taken charge of by the aged superintendent of the harem, Roz-āfzun Khan, and no tumult disturbed Delhi at the time.*