At the beginning of the Armenian genocide in 1915, Murad was at Sivas. After the order of deportation, in March 1915 Turkish gendarmes were sent to arrest Murad on the order of the Vali of Sivas. The Ottoman authorities had promised the Armenian population that they would be excluded from deportations if they handed Murad over. Many Armenians, particularly the elders who did not want to leave their property and home, began to report the Ottoman authorities about his whereabouts. Escaping capture, Murad and a small band of compatriots took to the hills and engaged in guerilla warfare against Turkish cavalry and infantry units sent to find him. In the autumn of 1915 he moved towards the Black Sea coast at Samsun where, joined by some Greek rebels, he captured a sailboat and escaped to the Russian port of Batum. He then travelled to Tiflis and joined the First Armenian Volunteer Battalion in the Russian forces. When in Tiflis he gave an account of his adventures, and the fate of the Armenian population of the Sivas vilayet, that appeared in James Bryce's report "The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire". He was with the Armenian Volunteer Battalion at the Battle of Erzinjan, and in Erzingan he organised a fund which rescued hundreds of Armenian women and children being held in Turkish and Kurdish households. He was killed leading a charge against Turkish positions during the Battle of Baku on 4 August 1918.