GHULAM MURTAZA, MIRZA, served the Lahore Darbar under Maharaja Ranjit Singh and his successors for several years. One of his ancestors, Hadi Beg, a Mughal migrant from Samarkand, had emigrated to the Punjab in 1530 during the reign of Babar and got appointment as qdzi or magistrate over seventy villages in the neighbourhood of Qadian. Hadi Beg`s descendants were engaged in constant struggle with the Ramgarhia and Kanhaiya sardars who had occupied territory in the neighbourhood of Qadian. Maharaja Ranjit Singh who had confiscated the possessions of the Ramgarhia chiefship restored to Ghulam Murtaza a large portion of his ancestral estates.