Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c21.s5.28

v2.c21.s5.28

Within the capital itself the Badakhshi soldiers of the wazir plundered the houses of the rich citizens without fear or check. In August 1754, Kishanchand Sud, a high accounts officer, was carried off by Bāqi Beg Khan, a captain of this Turki corps, to Mughalpura, put to torture by being suspended from a beam and asked to pay five lakhs. He underwent this treatment for fifteen days, but none sought to rescue him. He ultimately secured his release, we know not at what price; but on 7 June next year his house was plundered by the wazir's troops, though he contrived to escape by a back door.* On 14 Nov. 1754 Nāgar Mal, the High Diwan, abandoning his own house in the city, fled for refuge to Bāpu Hingané in Jaisinghpura. Imād sent a party to escheat the property of the fugitive, but the Marathas who had been sent to guard the house resisted the invaders. From Jaisinghpura Nāgar Mal sent a small Maratha force to bring his family away from their asylum in Samsām-ud-daulah’s house. But the wazir’s Badakhshis opposed these men, slaying twelve and wounding many of them and taking away their arms and mares. Then the victors went to Nāgar Mal’s house, expelled the Maratha guards from it, and finally cleared Pahārā Mal’s garden house, which was the residence of many Marathas, of every Deccani found there. Thus, not a Maratha was left within the walls of Delhi or in the marts around it. *TALS.* 30*b*-31*b*. *DC.* The wazir immediately took away Nāgar Mal’s two diwanships, but when he returned to Court a month later restored these offices to him.