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Persecution of the Sikhs (1739–46)
Zakariya Khan Bahadur, the Governor of Lahore, offered lucrative rewards for the discovery and killing of Sikhs. A substantial monetary reward was offered for information on the whereabouts of a Sikh. A blanket was offered to anyone who managed to cut off the distinctive mane of a Sikh or Khalsa and a larger sum for the delivery of a Sikh skull.

The plunder of Sikh homes was made lawful and anyone giving shelter to or withholding information about the movements of the Sikhs was liable to themselves being executed. Zakaria Khan's police scoured the countryside and brought back hundreds of Sikhs in chains. They were publicly executed at the horse market of Lahore, since renamed "Shahidganj", "place of the martyred"



Sikh Holocaust of 1762 or The Vadda Ghallūghārā (Punjabi: ਵੱਡਾ ਘੱਲੂਘਾਰਾ [ʋəɖɖɑ kə̀lːuɡɑ̀ɾɑ] [the Great Massacre]) was the mass-murder of the unarmed Sikhs by the Afghan forces of the Durrani Empire during the years of Afghan influence in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent owing to the repeated incursions of Ahmad Shah Durrani in February 1762.

It is distinguished from the Chhōtā Ghallūghārā (the Smaller Massacre). About 30,000 Sikhs, mostly non-combatants, were killed in the event and an estimated that 15,000 to 20,000 Sikhs were killed on February 5, 1762.

The Vadda Ghallūghārā was a dramatic and bloody massacre during the campaign of Afghanistan's (Durrani Empire) provincial government based at Lahore to wipe out the Sikhs, an offensive that had begun with the Mughals and lasted several decades.