Rai Ahmad Khan Kharal

Rai Ahmad Khan Kharal (Urdu: رائے احمد خان کھرَل ‎), also called Amo Kharal (1785–1857) was a Punjabi freedom activist and folk hero, who fought against the British Raj in the Indian Rebellion of 1857.[1][2][3]

Early History

Ahmed Khan kharal was born into a rich landowning family of the Kharal Rajput Clan in the Sandal Bar region of Punjab, in Chak 434 Gb Jhamra village 23 km from Tandlianwala Faisalabad District and 57 km from Faisalabad city. As a young man he fought against the rising Sikh power led by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Later on, as an old man in his 70s, when the rebellion broke out against the British, he also raised a force to fight against them.[4]

Martyrdom

Ahmed Khan Kharal was quite successful in helping the local people and keeping them safe from British troops, keeping up a guerilla warfare against British Raj for some months. On 26 July 1857, Amo Kharal went with a force to attack the Gogera Jail (now in Sahiwal District) to release some of his companions arrested by the enemy, but was ambushed by assistant commissioner of Gogera Leopold Oliver Fitzhardinge Berkeley[5] and their local allies. Ahmed Khan Kharal and his assistant, Sarang, were both embraced shahdat, fighting bravely.[6]

The deeds of this brave and noble warrior are still remembered and sung by Punjabi poets in dholas and vars, types of poems.

See also

References
  1. "Ahmed Khan Kharal and the Raj". thenews.com.pk. Retrieved 2020-05-07.
  2. "Kharal and Berkley II". DAWN.COM. Retrieved 2020-05-07.
  3. "Past in Perspective". nation.com.pk. Retrieved 2020-05-07.
  4. Saeed Ahmed Butt (2015). "Rai Ahmad Khan Kharral (Myth or Reality)" (PDF). JPUHS. 28 (2): 173–191. Retrieved 2020-05-07.
  5. "Lionel Berkeley: Letters and papers". Archives Hub. Retrieved 2020-05-07.
  6. "Tributes to A.D. Aijaz, the oral historian of Kharal’s resistance - Newspaper". DAWN.COM. Retrieved 2020-05-07.
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