Battle of Chach

Battle of Chach, was fought in 1001AD between the Ghaznavid army of Sultan Mahmud bin Sebuktigin (Mahmud of Ghazni) and the Hindu Shahi army of Jayapala, near Anandapala. Anandapala was defeated and in this way the invader achieved the victory. This left the region vulnerable and North India was then open to further invasions.

Background
King Jaipal had already died in Battle of Peshawar and Anandpal, the son of Jaipal, was filled with fury to avenge the death of his father. He called upon the nearby friendly rulers to send their contingents as this war had a need of better organization keeping in view of consequent attacks on the nearby regimes. Forces from Ajmer, Kalingar, Kanauj and other allies joined the Anandpal's force.

Battle
The massive army of the allied forces held out the Ghaznavids at the bank of Indus river. The invaders had to face a huge resistance at a place near Hazro called Chachhak or Chachh! The role of a local tribe was very significant in this battle which managed to kill a huge cavalry of Ghaznavid which were fighting at the forefront. The tribe is known to be Gakhar tribe. When the allied forces were moving forward to take over the enemy, the latter threw big fireballs at the elephants which made them frenzied and the elephants started moving amuck and crushed their own army men which turned the victory towards the invaders and also the fate of rest of the India which would later be ruled by Muslims for almost 400 years. Ghazni won the battle and Anandpal had cede to the territory and treasures.

Aftermath
The victory paved the way for Ghazni to raid into the India. He later raided seventeen times in which he plundered small tribes to large regimes, temples and women. He desecrated all the monuments that made him frenzied from. He attacked the holy cities like Thaneshwar, Mathura etc. In his seventeenth raid he plundered Somnath Temple and got as much money as he had got in his past sixteen raids.