Many others were brought to Lahore and tortured and beheaded in the market
place. This place is in Landa Bazar Lahore and is now known as Shahid Ganj
(the place of the martyrs). It was once more in 1734 that Bhai Mani Singh,
on his refusal to embrace Islam,was cut to pieces limb by limb. Then during
the rule of Zakriya Khan in the Punjab, a price was put on the heads of
the Sikhs. He who sheared off the hair of a Sikh, received blankets and
bedding, he who supplied information about a Sikh was given ten rupees
and he who caught or killed a Sikh was rewarded with fifty rupees from
the coffers of the state. But none of this dampened the spirits of the
Sikhs and they resolutely stuck to their faith and form.
In 1742, Bhai Taru Singh was offered the usual choice of Islam or death.
His only crime was that he was a Sikh. He bravely chose death. His executioners
wanted his hair to be cut off first. Bhai Taru Singh strongly protested
and gladly agreed to let his scalp be scrapped off with his hair intact
on it. He bore this brutal punishment bravely, continuing to recite the
Japji (The Sikh morning Prayer), and thus gave away his scalp for the protection
of his uncut hair. In February 1762, after the second great holocaust in
Sikh history, Baba Alia Singh, the saintly figure and the ancestor of the
rulers of Patiala state (Punjab), was arrested by Ahmed Shah Abdali. He
was given the choice of accepting Islam and having his hair cut off or
of paying 125,000 rupees. Baba naturally elected to pay the fine. These
and other great sacrifices made by the rank and file of the Sikhs have
never been in vain. Their example and the slogans, "SIR JAYE TAN JAYE,
MERA SIKHI SIDQ NA JA YE" (I would sooner accept death than renounce
my faith), is a source of great inspiration for all time to come.
