Kot Kapura

Location

This town is 10 km south of Faridkot and 51 km north of Bathinda. It has a railway station on the Bathinda-Firozpur section, and is connected by metalled roads with Moga, Firozpur, Muktsar and Bathinda. The population of the town was 47,550 in 1981, which rose to 62,480 in 1991.

Kot Kapura town was founded by Kapura one of the forefather of the princely ruling family of Faridkot State, at the suggestion of a famous Hindu ascetic, Bhai Bhagtu. Kapura had succeeded to the Chaudriat bestowed on his on his family by the Mughal Darbar at Delhi. When Guru Gobind Singh, before the battle of Muktsar, visited him and asked for his assistance, Kapura was hesitant as he was afraid of reprisals at the hands of the Mughals. The tradition goes that Guru Gobind Singh cursed Kapura, saying that he would die at the hands of his friends, the Turks (Mughals). Guru then stayed in the town at another place where now a Gurudwara associated with the Guru stands. Kapura, however, allowed Guru's family who was following the Guru to stay with him family who was following the Guru to stay with him for the night and entertained them. But this does not appear to have much softened the curse of the Guru. Isa Khan, the owner of the fort and village of that name who was Kapura's great rival and enemy, but had failed to make him yield. He then patched up with him and invited him to a banquet where he treacherously assassinated him. Kapura's sons avenged the murder of their father with a heavy hand, killed Isa Khan and plundered his fort. Kapura's descendents held kot Kapura and Faridkot separately till the Britishers made Pahar Singh the chief of Faridkot and bestowed koe Kapura Singh the chief of Faridkot and bestowed Kot Kapura on him, as a reward for his assistance in the First Anglo Sikh War of 1845.

Kot Kapura is a flourishing grain market and industrial centre . Among places of historical importance are a fort, now in ruins, and the place where Raja Wazir Singh used to say his prayers.