Sultan-ul-Qaum · Bandi Chhor, the Liberator · founder of Kapurthala State
3 May 1718 – October 1783
Sultan-ul-Qaum Nawab Jassa Singh Ahluwalia
The greatest figure of the house. Left fatherless as an infant, he was raised under the patronage of Mata Sundari and adopted by Nawab Kapur Singh. Commander of the Dal Khalsa from 1748, he was the liberator of Amritsar, the conqueror of Delhi in 1783, and the founder of Kapurthala State. He took the strong fort of Fatehabad after a siege of many days and made the town the seat of the Ahluwalia Misl. In 1761 he struck Abdali’s rear at the Goindwal ferry beside Fatehabad and freed above two thousand young women, winning the name Bandi Chhor, the Liberator; and from 1764 he laid with his own hand the foundation stone of the rebuilt Sri Darbar Sahib. He died at Bandala and was cremated at Dera Baba Atal, Amritsar.
He left no surviving son. An infant boy died before him, and his two daughters married into Tungwala and Fatehabad. The chiefship passed by his own designation to his kinsman Nawab Bhag Singh.
