exploded, killing 800 of the defenders. It was a mosque in which 180 tonnes of gunpowder were stored. A British mortar shell hit it. It is considered one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history. Mulraj nevertheless maintained his fire and sent a defiant message to Whish, stating that he still had enough powder to last a year. He attempted to mount a sortie against the besiegers on 31 December but this was driven back. Whish ordered a general assault on 2 January 1849. The attackers successfully scaled the breaches, and the battle became a bloody house-to-house fight in the city, in which many defenders and civilians were killed indiscriminately. Whish ordered the civilians to be herded into the main square; he may have intended to spare them from further fighting but the action of corralling them was also accompanied by further casualties. With the fall of the city, only the already-scarred citadel remained, but it held out for another fortnight against heavy bombardment. On 18 January, Whish's sappers exploded three mines under its walls, causing heavy losses and destroying large sections of its walls. Mulraj offered to surrender if his life was spared, but Whish insisted on unconditional surrender, and on 22 January, Mulraj gave himself up, with 550 men. Aftermath Corporal John Ryder of the (European) Bombay Fusiliers later wrote of the city after the siege, The British gained vast quantities of loot. Mulraj's treasury was worth three million pounds, a huge sum for the time. There was also much looting in the town, by both British and Indian soldiers. With the fall of Multan, Whish's army was able to reinforce the main Bengal Army force under Sir Hugh Gough. Whish's heavy guns were decisive at the Battle of Gujarat, which effectively broke Sher Singh's and Chattar Singh's armies and ended the war. Mulraj was placed on trial for the murders of Vans Agnew and Anderson. He was cleared of premeditated murder, but was found guilty of being an accessory after the fact, in that he had rewarded the murderers and openly used the deaths as pretext for rebellion. (Under British law at the time, an "accessory after the fact" of a crime was liable to the same punishment as the criminal.) Mulraj was sentenced to death, but the sentence was later commuted to exile for life. In August 1849, the Indus and Chenab rivers overflowed, and the