During their occupation, the Marathas perpetrated a massacre against the local population, killing close to 400,000 people in western Bengal and Bihar. This devastated Bengal's economy, as many of the people killed in the Maratha raids included merchants, textile weavers, silk winders, and mulberry cultivators. The Cossimbazar factory reported in 1742, for example, that the Marathas burnt down many of the houses where silk piece goods were made, along with weavers' looms. The Maratha invasions of Bengal badly affected the economy of Bengal and it is estimated that 400,000 Bengali Muslims were butchered brutally by the Hindu Maratha bargis., and the genocide has been considered to be among the deadliest massacres in Indian history.