Karnal

The family trace there origin to Mahtab Singh Bhangu of Mirankot who slayed Masa Ranghar the governer of Amritsar. Mahtab Singh was taken and killed for the murder of Masa Khan, in the time of Nadar Shah, about the middle of the 18th century. Ram Singh his son then an infant, was saved from his father’s fate by a sweeper who sheltered him while the search was being prosecuted, and ultimately left him in a jungle. Here he was found by a Kamboj woman, and taken to her husband’s home. But he never lost his identity, and when he grew up, Sardar Sham Singh, founder of the Karora Singhia Confederacy, gave him his daughter in marriage. He accompanied his father-in-law on most of his plundering expeditions, receiving his reward in villages. At Miran Kot he built a mud fort, and here he lived until his death in 1809. Of his four sons, the descendants of Gurbakhsh Singh and Kanwar Singh resided at Kotla Badla, Ludhiana, while Ratan Singh’s children have their head-quarters at Bheri, in the Samrala Tahsil. Ratan Singh was a man of culture. He was a good Persian scholar, and at the request of Captain Murray, Agent to the Governor-General, wrote a history called the Panth Parkash, of the various families then celebrated in the Punjab. He, moreover, rendered assistance in carriage and supplies during the Afghan War, and again when the troops were assembling for the campaign on the Sutlej ; his son, Gurmakh Singh, acompanying the army with four armed retainers. For these services, and others rendered in 1857, half the commutation payments were remitted by Government. Gurmakh Singh’s best act, perhaps, was to found a school in his village, for which he duly received a khilat and Sanad.