Nuruddin, a Jammu-based Afghan general ordered by Abdali to subdue the Sikhs, was driven back at Sialkot by Sikh soldiers led by Charhat Singh Sukerchakia. In reply, Khwaja Abed Khan, Abdali’s governor in Lahore, tried to besiege Sukerchakia’s base in Gujranwala—south of Sialkot and north of Lahore—but the bid misfired. Other Sikh forces—soon to be called misls or missals (from the Persian for ‘alike’), each under an independent chief and usually comprising the chief’s kinsmen—rallied to Sukerchakia’s support, including by attacking Afghan officers wherever found.
