It appears to me the costume designers of the movie did a simple google-image search and found the following image of Ahmad Shah Abdali and mistook the turban for some thing else. Note it is not a historical painting of Ahmad Shah Abdali, it is modern, and the artist was trying .

to draw a striped traditional turban of Pashtuns. Ahmad Shah Abdali usually wore a bejeweled crown like his predecessor Nadir Shah Afshar.

His grandson Zaman Shah Durrani also wore a bejeweled crown.

Painting of Ahmad Shah Durrani of circa 1785-1790, Inscribed: 'Hamed Shah Duranny'.

Painting of Ahmad Shah Abdali and his Grand Wazir Shah Wali Khan, ca.1760s. From an untitled album of Indian miniatures, Ms, Bodleian Library. Also notice that his nose is not missing in any of these paintings and he is not wearing any metallic face mask like Robocop.

" Sanjay Dutt in Panipat looks nothing like Ahmad Shah Abdali, fire the casting director, says Twitter "

@Pashz7 Every Muslim in their modern day movies is supposed to have a Ghutra (cloth) on his shoulders and a prayer cap on head. And every pakistani is supposed to start and end every sentence with the word “Janab”. How do you expect them to be better about historical movies??

@Pashz7 @Ambarseriya Bollywood happened

@Pashz7 @BiruniKhorasan From the perspective of us average Indians it’s all just an oversized funny looking head gear our Islamic colonizers wore no different from the bearskin fur cap worn by British military red coats... India’s other colonizers.

@Pashz7 @BiruniKhorasan I mean do we as Indian really care what this invaders mass murderer actually wore? It’s kinda like Poles worrying about whether they got Hitler’s Hugo Boss Warren SS or Wehrmacht uniformed down to the last precise detail.

@Pashz7 @DalrympleWill It looks like a Snapchat filter add on.

@Pashz7 It looks photoshopped on. These fools can’t get anything right

@Pashz7 A tired and sickly Abdali could not have fought the Panipat War.

@Pashz7 Panoti Arjun Kapoor Parchi film flop karwaiye ga 🤣

@Pashz7 The only abdali these bakhts deserve

@Pashz7 The Ottomans wore such elaborate turbans. The artist who created the famous painting of Abdali must have been inspired by Ottoman art. Perhaps he even did wear such Ottoman turbans, Afghans were very friendly with and looked up to the Ottomans.