The soldiers of Najaf Khan’s Red Platoon were still eager to fight. In the Diwan-i-Khas throne room, Shah Alam’s favourite son, Prince Akbar, gathered the other young Mughal shahzadas and asked for permission to engage: ‘One choice is yet left,’ he said. ‘If you will allow us, we brothers will fall upon these traitors, and will bravely encounter martyrdom.’ But the Emperor shook his head: ‘No one can escape the decrees of the Almighty,’ he said. ‘There is no contending against doom. The power is now in the hands of others.’
