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

Sardar Bostan Khan was the nephew of the clan's 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] Ranjit Singh 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, Sardar Bostan Khan, resumed the freedom struggle and went into rebellion against the Sikh Khalsa administrators.[4] A small Sikh fort in Sirikot in Gandgarh district was attacked and taken by the freedom fighters under Bostan Khan. At this time, the Sikh general Sardar Hari Singh Nalwa returned to his jagir Hazara inorder to quell this rebellion with the help of a French General Duarte commanding a sizable force of fresh reinforcements from Peshawar.[5] By now, the Sikhs had made up their minds and Hari Singh paid Rupees 50,000 as a tribute to the Maharaja Ranjit Singh in Lahore, to get the custody of Sardar Muhammad Khan Tareen, and had him poisoned to death.[6] At the same time, he had Bostan Khan and some other freedom fighters 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.[7]. [8] After this event, the anti-Sikh movement in Hazara region ended only to emerge in form of ineffective skirmishes in Ovrush, Tanawal, Pakhli, Konsh and Balakot.[9]

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.[10] 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.[11] And it was not until February 1852, when Sir Henry Lawrence visited Haripur, Hazara, that they were reinstated in their lands and dignities.[12]

gollark: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog", the traditional not-very-good one, has that too.
gollark: Also "The five boxing wizards jump quickly".
gollark: "Jived fox nymph grabs quick waltz" and "Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow" are two good not-quite-perfect pangrams.
gollark: There are many.
gollark: It's exotically spelled, so yes.

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. "Tareekh e Sarfaroshan e Sarhad"
  8. "Hazara Gazetteer,1883 and 1907"
  9. "Tareekh e Sarfaroshan e Sarhad"
  10. 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
  11. 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
  12. 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
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