Bostan Khan

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), who was executed for 'rebellion' by the Sikh administrators of the region at that time.[1]

Early life

He was born in Talokar (village) of Haripur area and was actually a nephew of the clan chief of that time, Sardar Muhammad Khan.[2] After the Sardar of Tareens was captured for rebelling against the Sikh Khalsa government of Lahore, in year 1824-25, Maharaja Ranjit Singh himself came to arrest him with a big force[3] and took the chief away in chains to Hasan Abdal and afterwards to incarceration in the Lahore Fort, in Punjab.

Struggle and death

After Sardar Muhammad Khan Tareen's capture his nephew, who was then representing his uncle as factor/manager of his estates, raised a new disturbance and rebellion.[4] A small Sikh fort in Sri Kot near river Indus was invested by rebels under Bostan. At this time, the Sikh general Sardar Hari Singh Nalwa returned to Hazara to quell this rebellion, which he did with the help of French General Duarte, with a sizable force of new troops from Peshawar.[5] By now, the Sikhs had made up their minds and Hari Singh paid Rupees 50,000 to the Maharaja Ranjit Singh in Lahore, to obtain control of Sardar Muhammad Khan Tareen, and had him poisoned to death.[6] At the same time, he had Bostan Khan and some other rebels like Jalal Khan Dilazak, two principal Maliks of the Mashwanis and Sheikha Jadoon also seized in Haripur. All of them were tied to the mouths of cannons by his order and blown away from these guns and thus martyred.[7] After this, the anti-Sikh rebellion in lower Hazara mostly ended.

Later events

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 Allahabad jail, and later hanged there.[8] As a result of the rebellion of the Tareen/Tarins of lower Hazara, they suffered heavy punitive damages under orders of Major James Abbott (Indian Army officer) and were deprived of many of their estates which were confiscated and many of their chieftains and headmen exiled[9] and it was not until February 1852, when Sir Henry Lawrence visited Haripur, Hazara, that they were reinstated in their lands and dignities.[10]

References

  1. ↑ Hazara District Gazetteer 1883-84 , Lahore, 1884, p.26
  2. ↑ Gazetteer, p.26
  3. ↑ Dr Sher Bahadar Panni Tarikh i Hazara
  4. ↑ Hazara Gazetteer
  5. ↑ Gazetteer, p.26
  6. ↑ Gazetteer p 26
  7. ↑ http://www.khyber.org/people/a/BostanKhanTarin.shtml
  8. ↑ As he did not have any offspring, a new chief Sardar Karam Khan 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
  9. ↑ Correspondence between 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
  10. ↑ 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