Action at Landakai

On the 16th Sir Bindon Blood, leaving his Reserve Brigade at Mardan and Rustam to observe the Buner passes, advanced by the left bank of the river towards Upper Swat, bivouacking at Thana, and sending forward to Landakai his cavalry, who reported that the enemy were holding the hills above the village in strength. The position at Landakai was naturally a very strong one, and was occupied by some 3000 tribesmen behind sangars on a steep rocky spur running down to the water’s edge from the mountains on the south. This spur commanded the approach by a gorge, the road through which only permitted of an advance in single file; but further to the west another ridge came down from a height overlooking the Landakai spur and ended at the village of Jalala. The few tribesmen holding Jalala were early dispossessed, and the ridge being then seized by the West Kent Regiment, it was occupied as an artillery position by a field and mountain battery, and a heavy fire was opened from here upon the Landakai spur.

The rest of the infantry, with another mountain battery, moved to the right along the rear of this position, and occupied a spur commanding the enemy’s left flank. The tribesmen, prevented from reinforcing this flank by the heavy infantry and gun fire from the Jalala spur, began to waver and then to fall back. Many escaped by the Morah Pass, and those who held on to the position were driven from their sangars by the advance of the whole of the infantry, who pursued them to Kota, the cavalry following as far up the valley as Abuwa, on the Barikot road, and doing considerable execution. Our losses this day were light—two killed and nine wounded. On the two following days the force moved on by Ghalegai to Mingaora, encountering no opposition, and finding the inhabitants ready enough to tender their submission and furnish supplies. From Mingaora, where the force remained some days, reconnaissances were sent out in all directions, the country was as far as possible disarmed, and the terms of submission were enforced. By the 22nd August jirgahs, representing all the Upper Swat clans, had agreed to unconditional surrender, and the force then commenced to withdraw, reaching Khar and the Malakand on the 27th.

While the Headquarters and the First Brigade had been operating in Upper Swat, the Second Brigade had remained at Khar to overawe the people of Lower Swat, pushing reconnaissances in all directions, the inhabitants remaining perfectly submissive. There had been some idea of employing this Brigade for the punishment of the Bunerwals and Utman Khels, implicated in the recent rising, but by this time the frontier generally was in a blaze, and it was decided that two of Sir Bindon’s brigades should be sent through Dir and Bajaur in order to co-operate with the Mohmand Field Force from Nawagai: these operations, in which the Second and Reserve (Third) Brigade were employed—the First Brigade remaining in occupation of Swat—will be found described in Chapter VII.

Since this year there has been no further outbreak of fanaticism and no other trouble in Swat, and the prosperity of the country has made very real progress.

CHAPTER VI
UTMAN KHELS.[[65]]

The trans-frontier portion of this tribe occupies the country between the Rud River on the north, the Panjkora and Swat Rivers on the east and south-east, and the Ambahar River on the south and south-west: their neighbours being the Bajauris on the north, the Akozai Yusafzais or Swatis on the east, and the Mohmands on the west; while the Peshawar district is the southern boundary. The country is a network of low hills and nullahs, and is generally unfertile and unproductive. The cis-frontier people of the tribe own certain lands in the northern portion of the Yusafzai Plain, originally bestowed upon them by the Baizais, when these, some time in the sixteenth century, were being pressed by the Ranizais. In the course of time the Baizais have practically been pushed from their own country by the Utman Khels. The Utman Khels hold the villages situated on the spur running down from the Pajja and Morah Ranges, and also the villages of Shamozai and Matta, on the north-west slopes of the Ganga Ghar Mountain.

The Utman Khel are said to be Sarbani Pathans of the Kodai Karlanri branch, who moved eastwards with the Yusafzais when these migrated from their earlier homes north-west of the Suleiman range, occupying their present territory simultaneously with the Yusafzai conquest of Swat. They are a hardy set of mountaineers, of good physique, hardworking, many of them eking out a scanty livelihood as labourers about Peshawar; “often,” so Oliver tells us, “naked from the waist up—a custom opposed to Pathan ideas—but not very civilised. They live in small groups of houses, rather than villages, stuck on the mountain side, secure in their inaccessibility.” There are no chiefs of any importance among them, and they are a very democratic people. They are estimated to number some 9,000 fighting men, poorly armed. The trans-frontier Utman Khels have always held themselves rather aloof, and few of them enlist with us; but the cis-frontier men have lately taken more freely to service in the levies, and even in the Indian army, and are said to make excellent soldiers.

Their country lies on both banks of the Swat River until the limits of the Mohmand territory are reached, and here the river bends to the south and forms the boundary between the two tribes. The country is throughout very difficult, there are few roads passable by any but a pedestrian, and the only means of crossing the Swat—here rushing a deep swift torrent between steep cliff-like banks—is afforded by a few rope bridges. To the north of the river are a number of valleys between spurs running out from the Koh-i-Mohr. To the south and south-east of this mountain are the important divisions of Barang and Ambahar; to the north-east lies Arang; and south of the Swat River, and between it and British territory, is the narrow hilly tract of Laman or Daman, traversed by the Sulala Range.

Utman Khel Clans