Wadda Ghallughara 1762: the great massacre at Kup Rohira

The Wadda Ghallughara, the great holocaust, took place on 5 February 1762 near the villages of Kup and Rohira, in today's Malerkotla district. In a single day the forces of Ahmad Shah Abdali killed a very large number of Sikhs, many of them women, children and the elderly. Sikh sources speak of tens of thousands; historians usually give figures between ten and thirty thousand. It is remembered as one of the darkest days in Sikh history.

The caravan

Early in 1762 the Sikhs were moving their families south from the Majha to the safety of the Malwa desert, near Barnala. Abdali, on his sixth invasion, made a forced march from Lahore with his army and joined the forces of the governor of Sirhind and the Nawab of Malerkotla, surprising the camp at Kup before dawn.

A moving wall

The Khalsa, led by Jassa Singh Ahluwalia and Charat Singh Sukerchakia, formed a ring around the caravan of non-combatants and fought as they marched, mile after mile, through the whole day. Jassa Singh Ahluwalia was wounded many times. By evening, near Gahil and Kutba-Bahmania, the survivors reached water and the attackers fell back. Abdali went on to blow up Sri Harmandir Sahib. Yet within months the Khalsa had regrouped and defeated his forces, and within two years they ruled Sirhind.

How it is remembered

The day is observed with Akhand Paath, kirtan and Ardas. Sangats gather at the memorial at Kup Rohira, built at the site of the massacre, and at Gahil in Barnala district, where an annual Jorh Mela remembers the end of that day's march.