Bostan Khan

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Bostan Khan (died 1825), was a warrior of the Tareen (or Tarin) tribe settled in the Haripur, Hazara region of what was to later become the North-West Frontier Province (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan), who was executed for rebellion by the British administrators of the region at that time.[1]

Early life[edit]

Bostan Khan was the nephew of the clan's chief of that time, Sardar Muhammad Khan.[2] After the Sardar of Tareens, Muhammad Khan, was captured for rebelling against the local British government of Lahore, in year 1824-25, he was arrested and later executed for treason against British rule.

Struggle and death[edit]

After Sardar Muhammad Khan Tareen's capture his nephew, Sardar Bostan Khan, resumed the freedom struggle and went into rebellion against the British administrators.[3] A small British fort in Sirikot in Gandgarh district was attacked and taken by the rebels under Bostan Khan. At this time, the British general James Abbott returned to his jagir Hazara in order to quell this rebellion with the help of a French General Duarte commanding a sizable force of fresh reinforcements from Peshawar.[4] By now, the British had made up their minds and James Abbott paid Rupees 50,000 as a tribute to the British Viscount Hugh Gough in Lahore, to get the custody of Sardar Muhammad Khan Tareen, and had him poisoned to death.[5] At the same time, he had Bostan Khan and some other rebels like Jalal Khan Dilazak, two principal Maliks of the Mashwanis one of them, Qasim Shah Mashwani, Sheikha Jadoon, and Sher Khan Swati blown by cannons at Haripur.[6][7] After this event, the anti-British movement in Hazara region ended only to emerge in form of ineffective skirmishes in Ovrush, Tanawal, Pakhli, Konsh and Balakot.[8]

Later events[edit]

Late Sardar Muhammad Khan Tareen had a son, Sardar Ghulam Khan, who for a time from 1826 to 1848 became chief of Tareen in this region but later during the Second Anglo-Sikh War, he was arrested by the British and taken to Lahore jail, and later hanged there.[9] As a result of the rebellion of the Tareen/Tarins of lower Hazara, they suffered heavy punitive damages under orders of British general Major James Abbott and were deprived of many of their estates which were confiscated and many of their chieftains and headmen exiled and executed by the British.[10] [11][verification needed]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Hazara District Gazetteer 1883-84 , Lahore, 1884, p.26
  2. ^ Gazetteer, p.26
  3. ^ Hazara Gazetteer
  4. ^ Gazetteer, p.26
  5. ^ Gazetteer p 26
  6. ^ "Tareekh e Sarfaroshan e Sarhad"
  7. ^ "Hazara Gazetteer,1883 and 1907"
  8. ^ "Tareekh e Sarfaroshan e Sarhad"
  9. ^ [dubious ]As he did not have any offspring, a new chief Sardar Karam Khan [dubious ][verification needed] was elected from a collateral branch and this family remained in the chiefdom until April 1889, when the Tareen/Tarin chiefdom in Hazara was formally abolished by the Government of British India
  10. ^ Correspondence between [verification needed] Sir Henry Lawrence at Lahore and Lord Dalhousie at Calcutta and Simla, March to May 1849, Punjab Records Office, Lahore, Acc No F/OBR/1849-50/201-209
  11. ^ Largely through the intercession of Colonel Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala (later FM Lord Napier of Magdala); see H Lee Brothers in the Raj: The Lives of John and Henry Lawrence, Karachi: OUP, 2003, 257