Part 33 (2/2)

6. Rughbur Behraleea, of Kiteya, an a.s.sociate of Imam Buksh and Chunda. Four months ago his gang seized two carts laden with valuable property belonging to Seodeen subahdar, of the Honourable Company's service. Through the interposition of the Resident they were restored fifteen days ago.

7. Jugurnath _Chupra.s.see_, a bhala soltan Rajpoot. This is one of the most formidable of the leaders of banditti in this and the adjoining district of Jugdeespore. He and his elder brother, Surubdowun Sing, were chupra.s.sees on the establishment of Captain Paton, when he was the First a.s.sistant at Lucknow, and had charge of the Post-office, in addition to his other duties. A post-office runner was one night robbed on the road, and Jugurnath was sent out to inquire into the circ.u.mstances. The Amil of the district gave him a large bribe to misrepresent the case to his master; and as he refused to share this bribe with his fellow-servants, they made known his manifold transgressions to Captain Paton, who forthwith dismissed him.

Surubdowun Sing was soon after dismissed for some other offence, and they both retired to their estate of Oskamow, in the Jugdeespore district.

This estate comprised fifteen villages. They obtained the leases of these villages by degrees, through the influence which their position at the Residency gave them. As soon as they got the lease of a village, they proceeded to turn out all the old proprietors and cultivators, in order the better to secure possession in perpetuity; and those among them of the military cla.s.s, fought ”to the death,” to retain or recover possession of their rights. To defend what they had iniquitously acquired, Jugurnath and his brothers collected together bands of the most desperate ruffians in the country, and located them in the several villages, so as to be able to concentrate and support each other at a concerted signal. The ousted proprietors attacked only those who presumed to reside in or cultivate the lands of which they had been robbed; but Jugurnath and his brethren were less scrupulous; and as they could afford to pay such bands in no other way, they gave them free licence to plunder all the villages around, and all travellers on the highway. Their position and influence at the Residency enabled them to deter the local authorities from exposing their iniquities; and they went on till all the villages became waste, and converted into dens of robbers.

They were, in all, six brothers, and they found their new trade so profitable and exciting, that they all became leaders of banditti, by profession, long before the dismissal of the two brothers from the Residency, though no one, I believe, ventured to prefer charges against them to the Resident or the Durbar. Soon after their dismissal, however, Jugurnath one night attacked and murdered his eldest brother, Surubdowun Sing, in order to get the whole estate to himself, and put his widow and daughter into prison. His other four brothers became alarmed, separated from him, and set up each his separate gang. But Jugurnath contrived soon after, in a dark night, to shoot the third brother, Himmut, dead, with one ball through the chest. Purmode Sing, the youngest brother, was soon after shot dead by some villager, whose cattle he was driving off in a night attack.

Bhugwunt Sing the fourth, and Byjonath, still survive, and have gangs of their own, afraid to trust themselves with Jugurnath, who has built two forts, Oskamow and Futtehpore, in the Jugdeespore district, and a third in two small villages, which he has lately seized upon and made waste, in the Rodowlee district, in order that he may have a stronghold to fly to when pressed by the governors of other districts.

They pay no rent or revenue to Government for any of the villages they hold. The king's officers are afraid to demand any from them.

They have plundered a great many villages, and are every month plundering others. They have murdered a great many persons of both s.e.xes and all ages, and tortured more into paying ransoms in proportion to their supposed means. Jugurnath is still the terror of the surrounding country, and a reward of five hundred rupees has been offered for his apprehension.*

[* See note to Chapter VI., Vol. II., on the capture of Maheput Sing.

A reward of one thousand rupees has since been offered for Jugurnath's arrest. See in Chapter IV., Vol. II:, an account of his desertion of his master, Captain Paton. He is still at large, and plundering. December 4th, 1851.]

8. Moorut Sing, of _Kiteya_, which has eleven small villages depending upon it, all occupied by Rajpoot robbers. Nowgowa, in Mohlara, in Rodowlee, on the left bank of the Goomtee river, twenty miles below Lucknow, has, in the same manner, twelve villages depending upon it, all occupied by Rajpoots, who rob, or shelter robbers, when pursued from the east. On the opposite bank is the village of Kholee, in the Hydergurh purgunna, held by Surfraz Chowdheree, and occupied by Brahmans and Musulmans, who shelter robbers in the same way. When they are pressed in Nowgowa they take shelter in Kholee, and when pressed in Kholee they take shelter in Nowgowa. All the robbers above named find shelter in these villages when pursued, and share their plunder with the inhabitants.

8. Bhooree Khan. The great-grandfather of Bhooree Khan, Rostam Khan.

was the leader of a large gang of Musulman freebooters. The estate of Deogon, containing thirty-seven villages, belonged to a family of Bys Rajpoots. Rostam Khan and his gang seized upon them all, and turned out the Rajpoot proprietors, and by force made three of them Musulmans, Kanhur, Bhooree, Geesee; and all their descendants are of the same creed.

Imam Buksh, the father of Bh.o.r.ee Khan, built a fort in Deogon, which the _family_ still held. In 1829, Rajah Dursun Sing took the mortgage of the estate for twenty-eight thousand one hundred and ten rupees, to enable Imam Buksh to liquidate a balance of revenue due to Government. When the time of payment came, in 1832, Imam Buksh could pay nothing; and he transferred the estate to Dursun Sing, on a deed of sale or bynama. He continued to manage the estate for Dursun Sing in farm; but, falling in balance, he was put into confinement, where he remained till he died, three years after, in the year 1842.

Bhooree Khan was then a boy, but he continued to receive the usual perquisites from the estate while Dursan Sing held it. In the year 1846, the governor of the district, Wajid Allee Khan, took the estate from Dursun Sing's family, and made it over to Bhooree Khan for a present of five thousand rupees. He ceased to pay the Government demand, collected a gang, and became a leader of banditti. He plundered all the people around, and all travellers on the road, seized and confined all who seemed likely to be able to pay ransom, and tortured and maimed them till they did pay; and those who could not or would not pay, he put to cruel deaths. The thirty-six villages on his estate became deserted by all save his followers, and those whom he could make subservient to his purposes, as robbers and murderers.

Ousan Opudeea resided at the village of Etapore, in the estate of Deogon, and possessed and cultivated lands in that and other villages around, for which he paid an annual rent of five hundred and ninety- nine rupees. In 1846, Bhooree Khan demanded from Ousan an increase of one hundred and fifty rupees, which he paid. The year after 1847, he demanded a further increase of the same amount, which he paid. He was then summoned to appear before Bhooree Khan, and was on his way when told that he would be seized with all his family, and tortured. He, in consequence, took his family to the village of Patkh.o.r.ee. Bhooree Khan followed with a gang of several hundred men, and two guns, attacked, plundered, and burnt down his house, and fifteen bullocks and buffaloes perished in the flames. One hundred and fifty head of cattle belonging to the village were taken off by the gang. Dwarka, one of Ousan's sons, was killed in defending the house; and the other two, Davey, aged sixteen, and Seochurun, aged seventeen, were seized, bound, and taken off to the jungle, with Ramdeen, Ousan's nephew, and many others of the respectable inhabitants of the village. After exacting a ransom from all the rest, he let them go; but retained the two sons of Ousan, and demanded twelve hundred rupees for their ransom. Ousan had lost all his property in the attack, and could raise no more than seven hundred rupees among his relatives and friends. This would not satisfy Bhooree Khan, who, after torturing and starving the boys for twelve months, and taking the seven hundred rupees, took them to the jungle of Gaemow, with fetters on their legs, and bamboo collars round their necks. He there had them tied to trees, and after firing at them as targets, for some time, with bows and arrows, he had them cut to pieces with swords, and then seized upon all the lands which their father held.

In 1848, Bhooree Khan attacked and plundered the house of Peer Khan, in Khanseepoor in Deogon, and bound and carried him off with his two brothers, Ameer Khan and Jehangeer Khan. He had them beaten with sticks, and caused small iron spikes to be driven up under their nails, and their eyelids to be sewn up with needle and thread, and their beards to be burned, till he extorted from them a ransom of eight hundred rupees.

While they were thus confined and being tortured, they saw four travellers brought in by the gang, and tortured and beaten to death, because they could not pay the ransom demanded from them.

Bh.o.r.ee Khan, in this month of August 1848, attacked the house of Sirdar Khan, an invalid naek of the 36th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry, and, after robbing it, burnt it to the ground, and bound and carried off to his fort in Deogon, Sirdar Khan himself and his three sons, Khoda Buksh, Allah Buksh, and Allee Buksh; the first fourteen years of age, the second eight, and the third seven years.

He tortured all three, and demanded a ransom of nineteen hundred rupees. This sum was borrowed and paid by Jehangeer Khan, the brother of the naek, and the naek was released. Bhooree Khan would not, however, release either of the sons till he got five hundred rupees more; but Sirdar Khan was unable to procure this further sum, and, in April 1849, Bhooree Khan had two of the boys, Khoda Buksh and Alla Buksh, tied to trees and shot to death with arrows, for the amus.e.m.e.nt of his gang. They were then hacked with swords, and their bodies were thrown into a ditch, whence he would not permit their friends to remove them for burial. Sirdar Khan became for a time deranged on hearing of the sufferings of his sons, and wandered about the country. Bhooree Khan, with his gang, again attacked the village, and burned it all down, and drove off all the cattle, including all that Sirdar Khan possessed. He recovered, and changed his residence to the village of Deokalee. Bhooree Khan still retained the third son, Allee Buksh, alias Pulleen, and he is still in prison.*

[* The Resident effected the release of the third son, Allee Buksh, in January, 1851, through the aid of Captain Orr, of the Frontier Police.]

Sirdar Khan's ancestors were the Rajpoot proprietors of the estate of Deogon, and were forcibly converted to Mahommedanism by Bhooree Khan's ancestors when they seized upon the estate. Sirdar Khan cultivated eighteen beegahs of land in the village of Salteemow, in Deogon, for which he had long paid thirty-six rupees a year rent.

Bhooree Khan demanded sixty-five a-year before the attack, and this sum Sirdar Khan paid, but it had no effect in softening the robber leader.

In the year 1847, soon after he took possession of the estate, Bhooree Khan sent a gang under the command of his cousin, Mungul Khan, to attack the house of Dulla, the most opulent and respectable merchant of the district, who resided in the town of Mukdoompore.

Dulla had two sons, Nychint and Pursun Sing. After plundering the house, the gang seized Dulla, his son Nychint, Golbay the son of Pursun Sing, and Ajoodheea the son of Nychint. Pursun Sing, the other son of the old merchant, had gone off to the Governor of the district, Rajah Incha Sing. to adjust his annual accounts. The females of the family got out through the back-door of the female apartments, and escaped to the village of Etwara, in the Jugdeespore district, where they had a residence. All the valuables had been buried in a pit in the house, some ten feet deep, and the females had no time to take them up.

The old man, his son Nychint, and his two sons, were sent off to Bhooree Khan, who, on learning that the valuables had not been found, came with fifty more armed men, accompanied by Baboo Mudar Buksh, the tallookdar of Silha in Jugdispore, his own agent Muheput, and a Brahmin prisoner named Cheyn, who knew Dulla, and the wealth he possessed. He brought with him the merchant's son Nychint, and commanded him to point out the place in which the valuables lay concealed. He would not do so, and Bhooree Khan then drove four tent- pins into the ground in the courtyard, placed Nychint on his face, and tied his hands and feet to these pegs. He then had him burnt into the bones with red-hot ramrods, but the young man still persisted in his refusal. He had then oil boiled in a large bra.s.s pot which they found in the house, and poured it over him till all the skin of his body came off. He became insensible for a time, and when he recovered his senses he pointed out the spot. Gold and silver ornaments and clothes of great value, and bra.s.s utensils belonging to the family, or held as pledges for money due to the old man, were taken up, with one hundred and fifty matchlocks and the same number of swords. They found also many pits, containing several thousand maunds of grain.

The valuables, and as much of the grain as he could find carriage for, Bhooree Khan and his gang carried off, and the rest of the grain he gave to any one who would take it. The value of the whole plunder was estimated at one hundred and fifty thousand rupees.

Nychint was unbound, but died that night, and the body was made over to the Brahmin, Cheyn, who had now become a Mussulman. He took it to the jungle, where he had it burnt with the usual ceremonies. Bhooree Khan still detained Ajodheea, the son of Nychint, and Golbay, the son of Pursun Sing, and demanded a further ransom for them, but he released Dulla, who came home and died of grief and of the tortures inflicted upon him in less than a month after. Cheyn, Dabey Sookul, and Forsut, all Brahmins of Mukdoompoor, were witnesses to the tortures inflicted upon Nychint, and to the plunder of the house. He kept Dulla's grandsons for a year more, with occasional tortures, but the surviving son, Pursun Sing, had nothing more to give, and no one would give or lend him anything. Golbay, his son, at last contrived to get a letter conveyed to him, stating that he was now less carefully guarded than he had been; that he and his cousin, Ajodheea, were sent to take their meals with a bearer, who lived in a hamlet on the border of the jungle, where they were guarded by only four pausee bowmen, and if his father could come with fifty armed men, and surprise them at a certain hour, he might rescue them. He a.s.sembled fifty men from surrounding villages, and at the appointed time, before daybreak, he surprised the guard, and rescued his son and nephew.

Gunga Purshad, son of Chob Sing, canoongo of Silha, in Deogon, left the place when Bhooree Khan took to plundering, and went off, in 1847, with his family to reside at Budulgur, a village held by Allee Buksh, a mile distant. A month after he had settled in that place, Bhooree Khan came with his gang, surrounded his house at night, plundered it, and seized and took off his brother, Bhowanee Purshad, two younger brothers, and his, Gunga Purshad's, daughter and son, with Gowree Lall and Gunesh Purshad, his relations, who had come on a visit to congratulate him on the prudence of his change of residence.

Gunga Purshad was absent at the time on business. All the prisoners were taken to the jungles and tortured with red-hot iron ramrods, and put into heavy fetters. He demanded a ransom of nine hundred and fifty rupees for all. Gunga Purshad sold all he had except some cows and bullocks, and collected four hundred rupees, and his relation's clubbed together and raised one hundred more. The five hundred were sent to Bhooree Khan, and he took them and released all but Bhowanee Purshad. His two younger brothers collected the cows and bullocks, and went with them to Mukdoompoor, in the hope of being allowed to till their lands; but Bhooree Khan and his gang came, seized and sold all the cows and bullocks they had saved, plundered them of everything, and took their lands from them. They all fled once more, and went to reside at Putgowa. At Mukdoompoor, Bhooree Khan had Bhowanee Purshad flogged so severely that he fell down insensible, and he then had red-hot iron spikes thrust into his eyes, and a few days after he died in confinement of his sufferings. The value of the property taken from the family, besides the five hundred rupees'

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