SAIF UDDIN MAHMUD, also called Saif Khan (d.1685), a high ranking noble in the reign of Aurangzib, was a man of religious disposition which, earned him the popular title of Faqirullah, meaning a holy man of God. His father, Tarbiat Khan, had been a Bakhshi or paymaster under Emperor Shah Jahan, and his elder brother, Fidai Khan, was Aurangzib`s foster brother. During the war of succession (1658) Saif udDin had fought gallantly on the side of Aurangzib, who rewarded him with the title of Saif Khan and the governorship of Agra. Relieved of his post later, Saif Khan retired to his small fief in Sirhind territory where he founded, in 1668, a fortified habitation named Saifabad, now Bahadurgarh, near Patiala. He was governor of Kashmir twice in 1665-68 and again in 1669-1671. In 1671, he quit the post and turned a hermit.
YAHIYA KHAN, the eldest son of Nawab Zakariya Khan, became governor of Lahore under the Mughals in 1745 after the death of his father. He continued his father\'s policy of repression against the Sikhs. During his regime, a fracas between a band of Sikh horsemen and the State constabulary resulted in the death of Jaspat Rai, Faujdar of Eminabad and younger brother of Diwan Lakhpat Rai, who was revenue minister to the governor. The minister, bent upon vengeance, took heavy reprisals, rounding up Sikhs living in Lahore and having them executed at the nakhas, the local horse market, later renamed by Sikhs Shahidgahi (martyrs shrine). Lakhpat Rai and Yahiya Khan proceeded in pursuit of Sikhs concentrating on the bank of the Ravi, north of Lahore.