The fall of Gawarian Fort, alarmed the Mughals and an army was immediately dispatched, which besieged Fateh Khan and his men in the fort. Fateh Khan gathered his men and sought council from them. They discussed whether they should save their lives by surrendering themselves to Mughals or fight to the death. All of them opted for fight. After twelve days siege, Fateh Khan and his band suddenly came out of fort and attacked the unprepared Mughal camp. After inflicting losses on Mughals, they retreated back to the fort. In this raid, Fateh Khan got heavily wounded. But next day, he and his men came out of the fort again to confront the Mughals for the last time. They attacked the Mughals and died one by one.
The Mughal army sustained heavy losses in this whole affair, at the hands of sixty Barechs. Their extraordinary bravery impressed the emperor Jehangir, and he renamed the renamed the town of ‘ Mughal Kot’ to ‘Fateh Pur’. Fateh Khan and his companions were buried there.( Zahir, Khan (Advocate). Barech Pathan (Vol-I), Dost Associates Lahore, 2006.)
Hayat-i-Afghani (1867) has the following description of Fateh Khan Barech;
“Kila Bist is best known as birthplace of the Pashtun hero and outlaw, Fateh Khan Barech, son of Aslam Khan. Fateh Khan was a Barech man, who having quarreled with his own family, got together a robber-band and went off to the neighborhood of Sialkot, where he carried on his marauding practices, until in the reign of Jehangir, a violent death put an end to his career. But these plain facts have been transformed into a glowing romance, and the spirited Pashto ballad that recounts his bravery and wails over his untimely end, is listened to by Afghans with never-failing delight. (Muhammad Hayat Khan, “Afghanistan and its inhabitants”, p-82)
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| Ruins of Qila-i-Bost |