Srinagar, July 6 -- By Gurjeet Singh

Dust rose from the plains outside Shopian as two armies closed the final distance between them.

Sikh infantry pressed forward behind artillery, while Afghan cavalry answered with force of its own.

Cannon fire rolled through the valley while commanders searched for an advantage that would decide far more than a single day's fighting.

By sunset on 3 July 1819, the contest had ended.

Jabbar Khan's Afghan force had broken. Misr Diwan Chand's army, fighting under Maharaja Ranjit Singh, had secured a victory whose consequences reached well beyond the battlefield.

Srinagar passed into Sikh control within days, and with that, sixty-seven years of Durrani rule came to an end, and twenty-seven years of Sik...