Gurdit Singh of Ladwa
Sirdar Gurdit Singh was a Punjab Chief from Ladwa in tahsi Thanesar in Kurukshetra district in Haryana.
History
Lepel H. Griffin writes:[1] An amnesty proclaimed by the British General AD 1805: An amnesty was proclaimed in the month of March 1805, by the Commander-in- Chief to all those Sikhs who would agree to observe peace and abstain from operations against the English, and in a short [Page-91] time this was accepted by Rai Singh of Jagadri, whose brother Sher Singh had been mortally wounded in the engagement with the English of the preceding year, and by all the Chiefs in arms, with the exception of Sirdar Gurdit Singh Ladwa who was expressly excluded from its provisions, although he had not been so active against the English as the Jagadri Chiefs, and his fort of Karnal, which Raja Bhag Singh had lost some years before, was captured by the English in April.
Sirdars Sahib Singh and Gurdit Singh of Ladwa were members of the Krora Singhia confederacy. They were Sansi Jats of the village of Bain Poin, ten miles south of Amritsar, and joined the troop of Mit Singh Rohela, about 1758. After the defeat of Zin Khan, Governor of Sirhind, in 1763, they seized Bahein, Shamghar and Ladwa. The last named district fell to the share of Gurdit Singh. In a skirmish with Agha Shafih, near Karnal, Sahib Singh was killed, and Gurdit Singh took the whole estate, with the exception of Shamghar, given to the brother of Sahib Singh's widow, and twelve villages given to Bhagwan Singh the adopted son of the deceased. Gurdit Singh was granted the district of Badowal by Ranjit Singh. He was succeeded by his son Ajit Singh, who built a bridge over the Sirsuti or Saraswati at Thanesar, and obtained the title of Raja. He rebelled in 1845 ; his estates were confiscated, and he was imprisoned at Allahabad. He contrived to escape, after killing his keeper, and after long wanderings is supposed to have died in Kashmir. His children are still living in the North West Provinces.