Rai Ahmad Khan Kharal also called Amo Kharal was born in 1785 into a rich landowning family of the Punjabi Kharal 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.
Rai Ahmed Khan Kharal was a resident of Neeli Bar's famous town Gogera, Sahiwal District,(Now Okara District). He was a Punjabi freedom fighter and folk hero, who fought against the British Raj in the Indian Rebellion of 1857. 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.
Ahmad Khan Kharal was quite successful in helping the local people and keeping them safe from British troops, keeping up guerilla warfare against British Raj for some months.
Rai Ahmed Khan Kharal was a landlord, owner of a reasonable/worth mentioning territory. He was the leader of the Kharal Tribe. He started his rebellion in a wide area of Punjab, Pakistan covering Ganji Bar, Neeli Bar, and Sandal Bar area (an area between rivers Sutlej, Ravi River, and Chenab covered with thick forests in past).
Rai Ahmed Khan Kharal was a peace-loving landlord, with respectable status but due to the prevailing injustice at that time, love for his motherland resulted in differences with the British rulers and made him the leader of the freedom fighters who carried out the famous Gogera insurrection.
The first clash came on the night of 26 July 1857, when Rai Ahmed Khan Kharal attacked the Gogera Central Jail and ensured the freedom of hundreds of freedom fighters who were kept there for actively taking part in the War of Independence 1857. These freedom fighters under the command of Rai Ahmed Khan Kharal were able to make a vast part of their land free of the British Raj for at least three months.
Rai Ahmed Khan Kharal headquarters was at Kot Kamalia. Along with his companions Murad Fatiana, Shujaa Bhadroo, and Mokha Wehniwal, he killed Lord Burkley, the Commissioner for Gogera. He united most of the Bari tribes against British rule and was finally killed in a battle with British forces defending his motherland.
On 21 September 1857, Rai Ahmed Khan Kharal went with a force to attack the Gogera Jail (now in Sahiwal District) to release some of his arrested companions but was ambushed by the assistant commissioner of Gogera, Lord Leopold Oliver Fitzhardinge Berkeley, and their local allies. Sarfraz Khan Kharal of Kamalia, who divulged all the plans to the assistant commissioner of Gogera, Lord Berkeley.
Lord Berkeley assembled a force and attacked Rai Ahmed Khan Kharal, based in the woods at Gashkori. Rai Ahmed Khan Kharal fought valiantly and repulsed the first attack of Lord Berkeley. But Berkley was lurking in the nearby woods and finding an opportunity and killed Ahmad Khan Kharal.
Rai Ahmed Khan Kharal and his assistant, Sardar Sarang, were both killed fighting against the colonial force of Lord Berkeley. After his death, his head was taken along by the British soldiers but snatched back by one of his loyal friends.
The tomb of Rai Ahmad Khan Kharal is located at 31° 04' 28.50" N, 73° 20' 01.70" E, in district Faisalabad. Travel to Tandlianwala, a town 50 kilometers south of Faisalabad. Then to Jhamra, the town of Ahmad Khan Khran Kharal. The tomb is 5 kilometers away from Jhamra.
A few days after the martyrdom of Rai Ahmed Khan Kharal his close friend Murad Fatiana avenged his death by killing Lord Leopold Oliver Fitzhardinge Berkeley, while he was crossing the river Ravi on his horseback.
Lord Berkeley is buried in a small cemetery, just outside the town of Gogera, in the northeastern direction. The cemetery is located at 30° 57' 51.50" N, 73° 19' 55.00" E. Gogera is located on the main Okara - Faisalabad road, about 20 kilometers away from Okara.
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