The Guru's mother, with the two youngest sons of the Guru, aged 5 and 7, and his wives, were to go first, while The Guru with five hundred of his following was to move out along with his two elder sons, at the dead of night. It was the bitingly cold month of December of the year 1704 A.D. On reaching Sirsa, the Guru met his mother and his two younger sons and entrusted a devout Sikh to take them to Delhi, to where his wives had already left. But, he took them instead to Rupar to a relation of his. Here, the Guru's mother met a Brahmin, Gangu, who was once their cook, who later took them to his village, Kheri, near Sirhind, and betrayed them to the Nawab of Sirhind.

The Nawab offered them the choice between Islam and death. "We are the sons of Govind Singh who knoweth not defeat, nor surrender," the older one is reported to have said, "our grandfather laid down his life, but gave up not his faith. So shall we. " When asked to bow before the Nawab, the little heroes kept their backs straight, and refused to pay obeisance to the Vicar of tyranny who was after the blood of their father and his peace-loving followers. When told that their father was dead and so there was no more any earthly hope for them, they are said to have replied: "Our father is deathless. He can never die." Realizing that even though tender of age, they were resolute of will and firm in faith, they were ordered to be bricked up alive.¹ Historians have gone lyrical over the manly and fearless ways of the innocent ones, but what else could one expect from the offspring of Guru Govind? However, for the aged mother of the Guru, the shock was too overwhelming and, on hearing of the heart-rending news, she collapsed. The Moghal authorities conducted a search in the Brahmin's house, suspecting that he had kept to himself the jewellery and other valuables of the Guru's mother. On his refusal to divulge where he has buried the treasure, they tortured him to death.

The only one to protest against this heinous crime against the Guru's sons was the Nawab of Malerkotla who said, "The sins of the father should not be visited upon the tender sons. If we could not defeat the Guru, why wreak vengeance on these poor little things! " But, his pleas went unheard. The Sikhs under Banda Singh Bahadur kept this act of grace on the part of Malerkotla's house so much in their memory that whereas they destroyed Sirhind utterly, and butchered Wazir Khan and his entire family, they spared the state of Malerkot altogether .The Guru was in the meantime being pursued by the Moghal army. He took shelter in an improvised mud fortress at Chamkaur, where a bloody battle ensued, resulting in the loss of all but five of the forty Sikhs who were now with the Guru, the rest having been left at Sirsa to withstand the Moghal assault, till the Guru had crossed to safety. The Guru's two elder sons, Ajit and Jujhar, also died fighting valiantly at Chamkaur in single combats. The Guru had insisted, much to the anguish of his followers, that if not the first, they must not be the last to die. Seeing them fall before his very eyes, he Even during the worst communal holocaust of many centuries that occurred in 1947, when Hindu, Sikh and Muslim populations of the divided Panjab migrated en masse to their respective homelands amidst much carnage, no Muslim of Malerkotla was touched, and they were pathetically persuaded to stay along with the Nawab in India, which they did.Possibly, it is these forty martyrs that the Guru blessed as the Muktas (or, the Saved ones), mention of whom is made in the Sikh prayer.