The four sections of the Malizai sub-division of the Khwazozai-Akozais resident in Dir are:
1. Painda Khel. 2. Sultan Khel. 3. Nusrudin Khel. 4. Ausa Khel.
On the Panjkora River, commencing from the north, in the Kashkar Valley, in which the village of Dir is situated, is the Akhund Khel sub-section of the Painda Khel Malizais, to which the Khan of Dir belongs. Below these again, on the left bank of the river, are more of the Painda Khel, and on the right bank the Sultan Khel; and, still further down, the Sultan Khel, Nusrudin Khel and Ausa Khel on both banks of the river.
The route to Chitral from the Swat Valley leads through this country. Leaving the Swat River at Chakdara, the road turns abruptly to the west and enters the Uch Valley, passing by the Katgola Pass (3000 feet) into the Talash Valley, where, as Bellew tells us and as later travellers have confirmed, there are extensive ruins of massive fortifications on the south side of the valley and nine or ten miles from the Panjkora, covering the hills for a distance of several miles. From here the ascent is very steep to the summit of the Kamrani Pass, to the north-east of which, in a valley, lies Mundah, the stronghold of Mian Gul Jan, the quarrelsome younger brother of the Khan of Dir. The descent from the kotal to Sado or Khungai is very steep. Turning to the right from Sado, the road passes up the Panjkora Valley, the river being crossed on the fourth march from Sado at Chutiatun, whence, a few miles further along the right bank of the Dir stream, Dir itself is reached. “Here,” writes Enriquez, “situated on a low hill is the stronghold of the Khan. The fort has three towers, each surmounted with a loop-holed fighting top.... The vale of Dir is well cultivated and numbers of chenars are scattered about it, so that its greenness is refreshing after the wearying aridity of the Panjkora. The little town of Dir occupies a steep khud abreast of the fort. Its crazy huts are built one above the other, so that the roof of one forms the promenade or front garden of the one above.” Then on up the Dir Valley, via Mirga, to the Lowari Pass and Chitral. An alternative route, branching off from Sado, runs westward for some way and then, turning northward again, ascends the bed of the Jandol River to the Janbatai Pass (7212 feet); after crossing this the road leads along the Baraul Valley to Chutiatun and Dir, where it joins the first mentioned road.
The people of Dir and Bajaur are all Sunni Muhammadans, intensely bigoted, but superstitious rather than religious. Their country is very much priest-ridden, and the people are unusually susceptible to the influence of the mullahs, who are able to excite them to fanaticism more easily and to a greater degree than among other Pathans. The fighting men in Dir and Bajaur number probably not less than 80,000; they, and more particularly the men of Dir, have a very strong sense of discipline; and in the event of a general fanatical rising the combination of tribes which could be formed would be by no means one to be despised, since they would probably receive material assistance, if not indeed open and active help, from Swat, from the Utman Khels, and very possibly from the men of Buner.
OPERATIONS.
Umra Khan of Jandol
It will be convenient here to give some account of Umra Khan of Jandol, whose usurpations were responsible for the formation of the Chitral Relief Expedition, the operations of which, in the countries of Dir and Bajaur, are about to be described.
Umra Khan was a younger son of the Khan of Jandol, and a grandson of the Chief of Bajaur who took up arms against us during the Ambela campaign. He quarrelled with his father and was expelled from the country; but returning in 1878 he killed his elder brother, and later, as the result of a year’s successful fighting, he made himself master of Jandol, and eventually brought under his control a tract of country extending from the Dir-Chitral border in the north to the Swat River in the south, and including the whole of Dir, the greater part of Bajaur and a portion of Swat. In 1891 and 1892 the Kabul Government undertook certain operations, which were not particularly successful, to check Umra Khan’s aggressions, and up to the latter year he seems to have been friendly inclined towards the British. In 1892, however, when he was being somewhat pressed, both by the Afghans from without and by rebels within his kingdom, an appeal which he made to the Government of India for assistance in the form of arms and ammunition was refused; and in 1893, as a result of the Durand Mission to Kabul, the territory of Asmar, which he had coveted and seized, and whence he had been driven, was handed over to Afghanistan. All this gave great offence to Umra Khan, and it was shortly after these events that he mixed himself in Chitral affairs—described in their proper place—leading to the despatch of the Chitral Relief Force in 1895 and the resultant operations in Dir and Bajaur.
Detail of the Force