The Battle of Akora Khattak was fought on 21 December 1826 between the Sikh Empire and the Mujahideen of Syed Ahmad Barelvi, consisting of Hindustani followers and allied Pashtuns, chiefly Yusufzai and Khattak. The battle began with a successful nocturnal assault by the Mujahideen, which inflicted heavy Sikh casualties, but several accounts state that the Sikh force under Budh Singh Sandhanwalia regrouped, repulsed the attackers, and forced them to withdraw into the hills.
Akora, located across the Indus River from Attock, was inhabited mainly by Khattak Afghans under Najaf Khan, who had fled to the hills after the Sikh conquest of Peshawar. Budh Singh Sandhanwalia was stationed there with about 4,000 men. Sayyid Ahmad organised a night assault with a force composed of Hindustanis, Kandaharis, Yusufzais and Khattaks. In the early hours of 21 December 1826, Allahbakhsh Khan led the attack while the Sikh troops were asleep in the winter cold. The initial assault caused heavy Sikh losses, but the attackers then turned to plundering the camp, allowing the Sikhs to regroup. Budh Singh reorganised his troops, counterattacked, and repulsed the Mujahideen, who withdrew into the hills. The Mujahideen lost 82 men, including Maulvi Baqar Ali of Patna and Allahbakhsh Khan, while Sikh casualties were placed at 500 to 700.
Sources differ in their description of the outcome of the battle. Some accounts highlight the success of the MujahideenâÂÂs surprise night attack, during which the Sikh forces took heavy losses.
Other accounts state that, despite the initial success of the attack, the Sikh forces under Budh Singh Sandhanwalia regrouped and repulsed the attackers after the Mujahideen turned to plundering the camp, forcing them to withdraw into the hills.
Accordingly, the battle has been variously presented in the sources as an early Mujahideen success, a failed attempt to secure a decisive victory, or a tactically mixed engagement in which the surprise assault inflicted substantial Sikh losses but did not produce lasting control of the field.
After the battle, Sayyid Ahmad shifted his headquarters to Sitana at the foot of the Mahaban mountains on the western side of the Indus. Although the night attack had inflicted substantial losses on the Sikh force, the Mujahideen failed to convert the surprise assault into a decisive victory, and the frontier campaign continued in the following months.