Afzal Khan

Afzal Khan was a Bijapur general sent to destroy Shivaji and was killed by him at their negotiating meeting in 1659, in the episode that made the Maratha state plausible. He was an experienced commander who had governed provinces and won battles for the Adil Shahi sultanate for decades, and he had killed Shivaji's elder brother Sambhaji at Kanakagiri some years earlier. Sent against Shivaji with a large army, he sacked temples at Tuljapur and Pandharpur on the way, apparently to provoke a response, and then found that the Maratha would not come down from the hills to fight in open country where numbers would tell. Negotiations were proposed, and a meeting arranged at the foot of Pratapgad fort with each man attended by one bodyguard. What happened inside the tent is described differently by Maratha and Bijapuri sources, and neither is disinterested: both agree that Afzal Khan embraced Shivaji and that Shivaji killed him with the wagh nakh, a set of iron claws worn concealed on the fingers, and a dagger. Each tradition says the other struck first. Shivaji's army, positioned in the forest above, fell on the leaderless Bijapuri force immediately and destroyed it, taking its artillery, horses and treasury. That materiel is what equipped the Maratha state for the next decade. A tomb at the foot of Pratapgad is attributed to him and has been the subject of repeated political disputes. The wagh nakh long displayed in London as the weapon was lent to India in 2024, and its authenticity is contested. Shivaji took four Bijapuri forts within a fortnight of the killing. Afzal Khan had reportedly drowned his own wives before the campaign after a prediction that he would not return.

• Lived: 1600 CE – 1659 CE
• Nationality: Indian
• Roles: military