पानीपत १७६१ (मराठा साम्राज्य एवं पानीपत महायुद्ध इतिहास)

96 PANIPAT 1761 very old now and had scarcely strength to ride swiftly enough to save his life $^{10}$ It was only because of his early start that he was not overtaken by the pursuing Afghans after the final rout In the meantime at the centre, Bhau tried to rally as many of his troops as he could, and fought to the last Janakoji and Tukoji joined him in this last effort Najib had succeeded in separating half the Shinde contin- gent from the other and closing upon its heels His position at 3 P M was in the gap created by the escape of the Shinde contingent, and Shah Pasand Khan was immediately at his back This position meant that Bhau's escape was now closed The main attack on Bhau came from the personal slaves of Ahmad Shah He had divided his 6,000 slaves into three parties, and placed each of them on the flanks of Bhau Bhau's front was now closed by the Wazir and the rear by Shah Pasand Khan and Barkhurdar Khan On the flanks, the 6,000 fresh troops began to fire incessantly and simultaneously This, combined with the frontal fire of swivel guns, made it impossible for the centre to swerve to any side, and they were turned into a knot which twisted itself this way and that at each attack until completely withered away by death Nana Fadnis reports that Bhau was fighting to the last, till fifty horse- men remained by his side After that Nana Fadnis was separated from Bhau and went back towards Panipat What happened to Bhau afterwards nobody ex- actly knows Tukoji Shinde, Sonaji Bhapkar and many other captains of note lost their lives in the last desperate fight Bhau would not take even a last chance of escape though advised to do so by Tukoji Shinde, and was thus slaughtered by someone somewhere at last We take Kashiraj's account of the finding of Bhau's trunk first and his head afterwards as true, though we do not believe in the story of Bhau's last struggle as reported by a Durrani soldier and put down in writing by Kashiraj, because it would not stand criti- cism Janakoji was wounded and was made a prisoner by Barkhurdar Khan The battle seems to have ended finally by 4 P M, when Nana Fadnis, separated from Bhau, turned his face towards Panipat Already many of the civilians had gathered there after early separating themselves from the centre Thus it was that Ramaji Anant Dabholkar, Bapuji Ballal Phadke and Nana Fadnis met together These three had good horses and therefore they were able to cut their way back to Panipat When Nana Fadnis reached Panipat it was already 5 P M ' Taking the advice of experienced Ramajipant, all of them left their horses and baggage and donned the garbs of ill clad beggars As Ramajipant knew the geography of those parts well, he led the party out, going west After it was dark they started their trek, but before they could cover one kos they were attacked three or four times and searched by the Afghans Each time they could they cut off ten or twenty of the party till they covered a great distance, some twelve or more miles to the south west. Upto this point the three had kept together But again the Afghans came and wounded Ramaji and Bapuji who thus fell behind Weak Nana Fadnis swerved into tall grass and was thus saved, his frail figure probably creating compassion • $^{10}$ Ibid. 3.516, dated 11 3 1760 1