Place:Bathinda, Bathinda, Punjab, India

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Bathinda is a city and municipal corporation in Punjab, India. The city is the administrative headquarters of Bathinda District. It is located in northwestern India in the Malwa Region, west of the capital city of Chandigarh and is the fifth largest city of Punjab.

Bathinda is home to the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Punjab Technical University, Central University of Punjab and AIIMS Bathinda. The city is also home to two modern thermal power plants, Guru Nanak Dev Thermal Plant and Guru Hargobind Thermal Plant at Lehra Mohabbat. Also located in the city is a fertilizer plant, two cement plants (Ambuja Cements and UltraTech Cement Limited), a large army cantonment, an air force station, a zoo,^[1] and a historic Qila Mubarak fort.

History

the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Bhatinda was changed to Bathinda to conform to the phonetical expression as locally pronounced. According to Henry George Raverty, Bathinda was known as Tabar-i-Hind (Labb-ut-Twarikh), which roughly translates as ‘Gateway to India’. The earliest mention of Tabar-i-Hind occurs in the Jami-Ul-Hakayat written about 607 Hijri or 1211 AD.

In 1004, Mahmud of Ghazni besieged the local fort, which was located on the route from the northwest into the rich Ganges valley.

In 1189, Muhammad Ghori attacked and occupied the fort of Bathinda. Prithvi Raj Chauhan, the ruler of this region, managed to recover possession of the fort thirteen months later in 1191 after the First Battle of Tarain. However, Prithviraj Chauhan was killed in the Second Battle of Tarain and the fort of Bathinda once again came under the control of Muhammad Ghori.

In 1488, Bathinda was conquered by Rao Bika, son of Rao Jodha (founder of Jodhpur) and became part of Bikaner princely state. Bathinda was an important fort in the area from Delhi to Lahore during the time of the Delhi Sultanate.

In 1634, a battle named Battle of Lahira (at Lahira in Bathinda) was fought between Guru Hargobind and Mughals.

The town had become an important trade and commercial centre under Mughal rule and the Mughal Emperors such as Akbar and Aurangzeb undertook many projects to enhance the fort of Bathinda.

In circa 1754, the town was conquered by Maharaja Ala Singh, the Maharaja of Patiala and since then it followed the history of erstwhile princely state of Patiala. With the dawn of independence and merger of Patiala and East Punjab States into a division called PEPSU, Bathinda become a full-fledged district with headquarters at Bathinda city.^[2]

Research Tips