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Named after the village of Dalleval to which its founder, Gulab
Singh, belonged. Tara Singh was a shepherd-turned-outlaw who joined
Gulab Singh Dallevalia in his plundering raids. His dexterity in
lifting cattle and flocks of sheep and his ingenuity in transporting
them across the Ravi won him the nickname Ghaiba (the Vanisher).
On the death of Gulab Singh, Tara Singh succeeded to the leadership
of the misl, and, within a short time, his intrepidity and lust
for war and conquest made the Dallevalia confederacy very powerful.
One of Tara Singh's first exploits was to rob a detachment of Ahmad
Shah Durrani's troops of their horses and arms while crossing the
Beas river near his village, Kang, in Kapurthala district. In 1760,
he crossed the Sutlej and conquered the towns of Dharamkot and fatehgarh.
On his return to the Doab, he took Sarai Dakkhni from Sharaf ud-Din,
an Afghan of Jalandhar and marched eastwards, seizing the country
around Rahon in which town he took up his residence.
He next captured Nakodar from the Manj Rajputs,
and other groups of villages on the right of the Sutlej, including
Mahatpur and Kot Badal Khan.
In 1763, Tara Singh joined the Bhangi, Kanhaiya and Ramgarhia misls
against the Pathan Nawab of Kasur, and, in the sack of the town,
collected 400,000 rupees as his share of the booty. He joined other
Sikh sardars in laying siege to Sirhind (January 1764) and razing
it to the ground after defeating its governor, Zain Khan. By 1765,
Tara Singh had considerably increased his power and territories
in the Upper Jalandhar Doab, in parts of Ludhiana, Ambala and Firozpur
districts-the entire country south of the River Sutlej yielding
an annual revenue of Rs. 17,00,000.
Tara Singh was a close friend of Maharaja Ranjit
Singh's and took part in his early Malva expeditions. He died in
1807 at the ripe age of 90. After his death, Maharaja Ranjit Singh
annexed the Dallevalia territories to his kingdom.
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