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Describing Ghulam Kader's reign of terror, a chronicler writes: "One of Bedar Bakht's ladies died of fright at what was going on, and now the Afghans having stripped the ladies were thinking of taking them (away)." When entreated to have mercy and not heap such shame on the royal ladies, Ghulam Kader replied that the emperor's servants had "plundered his father's apartments, they had done worse than that to his women. Now, said he, 'it shall be a sight to see, for my men shall take the hands of king's daughters, conduct them home, and take possession of their persons without marriage'." Ghulam Kader's retort to emperor Shah Alam's face was an unequivocal indictment of Islamic rule anywhere, of Mohammed and Allah, as well.
However, Ghulam Kader did not go free either. He was later captured by the Marathas and handed over to the Moghuls. The Moghuls put a chain on his legs and a collar round his neck like a bullock's yoke. His ears were first cut off and hung round his neck. His face was blackened; he was paraded round the city and =09 army camps. Next day his nose and upper lip were cut off and he was again paraded. On the third day, he was thrown upon the ground, his eyes were torn out and he was once more paraded to show his ever new and gruesome appearance to the public. After that his hands were cut off, then his feet and last of all, his head. The corpse was then hung from a tree. A black dog, white round the eyes, appeared on the scene, licked up the blood as it dripped. On the third day, the corpse and the dog disappeared altogether.
Shah Alam died in 1806 A.D. at the age of 86 meeting a most wretched end. His son Akbar lived in Delhi as a pensioner-emperor receiving Rs. 100,000 a year from the British. Akbar died in 1837 A.D. His son Mohammed Bahadur Shah succeeded in the pension. It was this Bahadur Shah who was later tried and banished in 1858 A.D. for life in Burma. (Today, Nehru's India flaunts the Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg in New Delhi after this rascal's name! Isn't that a shame? - The Publihser.)
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