Satguru Ram Singh Ji founded the Namdhari sect at Bhaini Sahib in Ludhiana district on 12 April 1857. In January 1872 a party of Kukas attacked Malerkotla. Deputy Commissioner John Lambert Cowan had 66 of them blown from cannon over two days, 49 on 17 January and 16 the next, without trial.
Among the dead was Bishan Singh, twelve years old, who refused to renounce. Accounts say his hands were cut off first. Waryam Singh was judged too short to reach the cannon's mouth and carried earth and stones from the nearby fields to build himself a platform.
The Namdhari Shaheedi Samarak stands on the edge of the town. Its khanda carries three fans of 22 holes each.
Malerkotla is the only Muslim-majority town left in Indian Punjab. It was founded by the Sufi Haider Sheikh, granted land by Sultan Bahlol Lodhi in 1454. In 1705, when Wazir Khan of Sirhind ordered the younger sons of Guru Gobind Singh Ji bricked up alive, Nawab Sher Mohammad Khan objected aloud. That protest is remembered as the Haah da Naara. In 1947 the town took in around 200,000 refugees. It became Punjab's 23rd district in 2021, announced on Eid-ul-Fitr.
The Nawab's protest at the execution of the younger Sahibzade is recorded in the Sikh tradition as the haah da naara, the cry against injustice, and it is why the town is remembered.
In 1947 the town was not attacked and its Muslim population stayed, which makes it the one substantial Muslim community left in Indian Punjab.
The connection between the two facts is asserted constantly and is not documented. What is documented is that the town stayed and the rest of the province did not.