ATTACK OF SHIVAJI RAJE ON SAHISTAY KHAN AT LAL MAHAL...
Upon the request of Badi Begum of Bijapur, Aurangzeb sent his maternal uncle Shaista Khan,
with an army numbering over 150,000 along with a powerful artillery
division in January 1660 to attack Shivaji in conjunction with Bijapur's
army led by Siddi Jauhar. Shaista Khan, with his better equipped and
provisioned army of 300,000 seized Pune and the nearby fort of Chakan,
besieging it for a month and a half until breaching the walls. Shaista
Khan pressed his advantage of having a larger, better provisioned and
heavily armed Mughal army and made inroads into some of the Maratha
territory, seizing the city of Pune and establishing his residence at
Shivaji's palace of Lal Mahal.
In April 1663, Shivaji launched a surprise attack on Shaista Khan in
Pune; accounts of the story differ in the popular imagination, but there
is some agreement that Shivaji and band of some 200 followers
infiltrated Pune, using a wedding procession as cover. They overcame the
palace guards, breached the wall, and entered Shaista Khan's quarters,
killing those they found there. Shaista Khan escaped, losing his thumb
in the melee, but one of his sons and other members of his household
were killed. The Khan took refuge with the Moghul forces outside of
Pune, and Aurangzeb punished him for this embarrassment with a transfer
to Bengal.An Uzbek general, Kartalab Khan, was sent by Shaista Khan to attack and reduce the number of forts under Shivaji's control in the Konkan region on 3 February 1661. The 30,000 Mughal troops left Pune, marching through the back-country in an attempt to surprise the Marathas. In the Battle of Umberkhind, Shivaji's forces ambushed and enveloped them with infantry and light cavalry in the dense forests of Umber Khind pass near present-day Pen. With defeat inevitable, the Mughal commander, a Maratha woman named Raibagan, advised Kartalab to parley with Shivaji, who allowed the Mughals to surrender all their supplies and arms, and depart with safe passage.In retaliation for Shaista Khan's attacks, and to replenish his now-depleted treasury, in 1664 Shivaji sacked the city of Surat, a wealthy Mughal Trading Centre.
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