Sirhind was a great Mughal provincial capital on the Delhi to Lahore road, with gardens, serais, a mint and a large population. It was destroyed twice.
In 1710 Banda Singh Bahadur Ji took and sacked it after Chappar Chiri. It recovered partially under later Mughal and Afghan governors.
In January 1764 the Dal Khalsa took it again, killed the governor Zain Khan, and levelled it. The tradition holds that the Sikhs pulled the bricks down by hand, and that a Sikh passing through Sirhind was expected to take a brick out of a wall.
The town never recovered. What is there now is Fatehgarh Sahib, built around the site of the Sahibzade's martyrdom, plus the tomb of Mujaddid Alf Sani, Sheikh Ahmad Sirhindi, which is a major Naqshbandi shrine and draws pilgrims from Afghanistan and central Asia.
A Mughal capital was deliberately unbuilt as an act of memory, and the ground it stood on is now a Sikh commemorative complex and a Sufi shrine side by side.
The town was taken and destroyed by Banda Singh Bahadur Ji in 1710 after Chappar Chiri, and again in 1764 by the Dal Khalsa, when it was systematically demolished.
What is at the site now is a spread of brick debris under fields and modern building, with the Rauza Sharif and the gurdwaras standing in it.
A Mughal provincial capital lies under the ground of one district and has never been excavated. What was destroyed twice is still there, a metre down.