Three companions were executed at Delhi in front of Guru Tegh Bahadur Ji in November 1675, to make him recant.
Bhai Mati Das Ji was sawn in two from the head down. Bhai Sati Das Ji, his brother, was wrapped in cotton wool and set alight. Bhai Dayala Ji was boiled in a cauldron.
The two brothers were Mohyal Brahmins of Kariala in Jhelum district. Bhai Dayala Ji was from Alipur.
Their manner of death is depicted in the Sikh Museum at the Golden Temple and in prints found in gurdwaras everywhere, which is a deliberate choice: the tradition has never sanitised the executions.
Gurdwara Sis Ganj at Chandni Chowk stands over the site of all four deaths.
The three were brought to Delhi with the Guru in November 1675. The executions were carried out over several days at the kotwali at Chandni Chowk in his presence, and the sequence is understood in the tradition as an attempt to break his resolve before his own execution.
Bhai Mati Das Ji and Bhai Sati Das Ji were brothers and their family had served the Gurus since the time of Guru Hargobind Sahib Ji. Kariala, their village in Jhelum district, is in Pakistan and is known there now as the birthplace of a twentieth century Urdu poet.
Gurdwara Sis Ganj Sahib stands at the site and the Sunehri Masjid faces it across the road. The kotwali building itself was transferred to the gurdwara in 2011 after a long campaign and forms part of the complex.