The Maratha Peshwa Balaji Baji Rao sent his brother Raghunath Rao along with Shamsher Bahadur, Ramsingha, Gangadhar Tatya, Sakharam Bapu Bokil, Naroshankar Rajebahadur, Sidhojiraje Gharge-Desai-Deshmukh, Mankojiraje Gharge-Desai-Deshmukh, Maujiram Bania and a large army towards Delhi.

He decided to request the Maratha support as a large Afghan army was expected to reinforce and Adina needed more alliance to battle the invaders.

[3] The captured Uzbek, Pashtun and Khorasani soldiers were brutally tortured and forced to clean up the holy temples desecrated by them.

[4] The Maratha and Sikh forces gave chase to the Pathans on horseback and were in quick pursuit of them in which they went on to capture Attock and then Peshawar from the Afghans.

Many of his soldiers, particularly Afghan mercenaries deserted his army camp and added to the number of freebooters, thus creating chaos and anarchy everywhere.

Tukojirao Holkar and Narsoji Pandit, the Maratha commanders of Peshawar and Attock had to withdraw their troops from the frontier posts.

By this time, Sabaji Scindia had reached Lahore, with fresh troops and a large number of Sikh fighters, who had once again allied with the Marathas.

The combined forces of the Marathas and Sikhs massacred the Afghan garrison in which Jahan Khan lost his son and was himself wounded.

He, along with his commander Jahan Khan invaded Punjab for the fifth time with a gigantic army of 60,000 men[9] accompanied by heavy field-guns and Zamburaks.

The remaining Marathas, along with Sikhs and Jats offered staunch resistance to the invaders at Lahore, but they were ultimately defeated due to inferior numbers.

[2] Qutub Shah, the ally of Najib Khan and the religious leader of the Rohillas, killed Dattaji and beheaded him at Burrari Ghat near Delhi in January 1760, in a treacherous ambush.

They were also fighting against the Portuguese near Thane and Surat, moreover their capital was Poona (now Pune) which was too far from Delhi to conduct immediate actions and war play.

They even decided to extend their rule up to Kabul and Kandahar but several Hindu kings feared that the emergence of the Maratha empire would hurt their territorial interests so they invited Abdali to invade India along with Muslim rulers.