He therefore requested the assistance of the Muhammad Shah to close the frontiers around Kabul and the Indus Valley so that the rebels may not flee or seek refuge. Muhammad Shah gave a confirming reply to Nader Shah but didn't do any thing practically, because the local Subedars and Faujdars sympathised with the Afghan and rejected Persian rule. The Afghan rebels eventually did flee to the Mughals. Outraged by this, Nader Shah sent an ambassador to Muhammad Shah, demanding deliverance of the fugitives. The Mughal Emperor did not provide a positive response and kept the Persians marginalised from Delhi for an entire year. Nader Shah became furious with Muhammad Shah. He had now found himself two reasons of why to invade the Mughal Empire; one, that the Mughals didn't deliver the Afghan rebels to him, and two, he knew that the Mughals were weak, but still extremely wealthy. Invasion of the Mughal Empire On the basis of the above reasons, Nader Shah decided to invade the Mughal Empire, by starting to attack from Afghanistan. In May 1738 he attacked Northern Afghanistan. In the same month, he captured Ghazni, in June he captured Kabul and in September Jalalabad also fell to him. In November he surrounded the fortress of Peshawar and razed it to the ground after the Battle of Khyber pass. Finally in January 1739, he captured Lahore, after completely subduing the forces of the Mughal viceroy, Zakariya Khan Bahadur and his 25,000 elite Sowars, by the river Chenab the Afsharid forces soon encountered bands of Sikh rebels whom Nader Shah predicted would clearly benefit after his invasion. Now Nader Shah had captured territory all the way up to Attock, and Muhammad Shah and his courtiers could not close their eyes from further danger. They finally understood that the Persian emperor was not the sort of enemy that could be bought off with the loot of a province. Furthermore, he had devastated the area he just conquered. The cities of Wazirabad, Emanabad and Gujrat were not only sacked but razed to the ground. Near Larkana the Afsharid forces completely routed the Mughal Army of the Nawab of Sindh, Main Noor Mohammad Kalhoro, and later captured him and his two sons. In February 1739, Nader Shah captured Sirhind and moved towards the field of Karnal, a battle destined to be fateful to the Mughal rulers. On 13 February, the battle of