पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

72 PANIPAT: 1761

from Delhi to Panipat.³⁵ The news of this shifting had not reached Delhi, and so the Maratha troops were passing along the road in the dead of night as usual. There were with him three hundred soldiers each carrying five hun- dred rupees. In the severe cold of January, with their bodies benumbed by night exposure, they unsuspectingly entered the Afghan camp five miles to the south of Panipat, thinking it to be the Maratha camp. They alighted from their horses and tried to warm themselves by the burning fire sides. Some took out their pipes and began to smoke. As they had entered from the back of the Afghan camp without fear, none at first seems to have recognised or obstructed them, the Afghans taking them probably as a batch of their allies. But when the Marathas began to converse, the Afghans got the clue and raised a hue and cry. Only one escaped from the tussle and returned back to Delhi.³⁶ The rest were deprived of their cash and horses and put to the sword according to Kashiraj,³⁷ while the Bhau Bakhar and the Ka fiyāt say that they reached the Maratha camp safely after the mishap.³⁸

As more than five lakhs of people were living in that small area from Panipat to Samalkha for more than two months (in the two camps together), all the wood and fodder in the vicinity had disappeared and the whole area had become one vast barren plain. Some ten villages had left their sites and gone to live elsewhere. The citizens of Panipat had to remain confined in the small walled area, with no space left for movement. Their farms and gar- dens had disappeared from the scene. Naturally they had become hostile to the Marathas and being Muslims for the most part, seem to have acted treacherously from behind in giving news to Abdali and carrying on nefarious activities in collusion with the Afghans of Kunjpura and the surrounding area. The civil behaviour of the Marathas with such people has cost the Marathas very dearly in history.

In their two and a half months' beleaguerment at Panipat, the Mara- thas must have spent practically every pie they possessed for buying the vic- tuals at ten fold prices. The system adopted for fetching grain from a distance was to send an escort of some thousands to accompany the caravan from Karnal to Panipat, and while returning to see them back with their pack- bullocks to Karnal again. But after a time this source also dried up, either because there was no grain to sell, or more probably because the Afghans had recovered their posts like Kunjpura and Karnal in the north. Abdali was fur- nished, some time in the second week of December, with fresh troops from Afghanistan to the extent of eight thousand. Atai Khan was their leader. Before joining Abdali, he seems to have followed not the direct route to Pani- pat, but the safer route across the Jamuna by the Budhia or the Andhera Ghat north and south of Kunjpura. Before entering the Doab, he could not but have driven out the small Maratha out posts at Karnal and Kunjpura with the help of his splendid troops. Diler Khan, the only son of Nejabat Khan, left

---

³⁵ Shinde 1.229 ³⁶ Raj. 1.231. 333 ³⁷ Battle of Panipat 19^6 p. 21 ³⁸ Bhau Bakhar p 132. Kaifyat p. 21