_Operations against the Michni Mohmands in 1854._—For this purpose, while the garrisons of the forts and posts at Abazai, Shabkadar, Mian Khel and Michni were strengthened, a force as below enumerated was concentrated at Michni, under command of Colonel Cotton, 22nd Foot:
Two guns 1st Troop 3rd Brigade Horse Artillery.
2nd Company 2nd Battalion Artillery with Mountain Train Battery (4 howitzers and 4 guns).
The advance commenced on the 31st August along the left bank of the Kabul River in the direction of Shahmansur Khel, which was captured after some opposition. While the destruction of the village and the removal of grain stores was in progress, the heights above had to be seized and held, and the troops engaged on this duty were exposed to an unceasing and galling fire, and suffered several casualties, but the subsequent retirement to camp was practically unmolested. On the 2nd September Colonel Cotton again moved out, and destroyed the villages of Dab and Sadin, when the troops returned to Peshawar, and the well-affected among the Michni Mohmands paid up their share of the tribute due.
After this the Mohmands continued to commit outrages, issuing in large bodies from the hills and harrying the border, and between March, 1855, and July, 1857, no fewer than thirty-six serious raids, having plunder and murder for their objects, were committed by the Mohmands of Pandiali. The Commissioner, Colonel Edwardes, had been supported by the Chief Commissioner, Sir John Lawrence, in recommending punitive operations in the Pandiali Valley, but the Government were unwilling to undertake them at the time, and when the Mutiny broke out in 1857 our attention was at once more pressingly directed to other quarters.
During this period the Mohmands failed, by any concerted action, to avail themselves of an unusually favourable opportunity of increasing their annoyance, but raids and outrages did not cease, while there were no troops available on the frontier to move out against them. From the beginning of September 1857 to March 1860, thirty-nine serious outrages were committed by members of this tribe. Within five years eighty-five raids had been conducted by parties of an average strength of seventy-five men, in which fourteen British subjects had been killed, twenty-seven wounded, and fifty-five carried off, while over 1200 head of cattle had been plundered. This was exclusive of forty minor raids in which thirty-five British subjects had been killed or wounded and 267 head of cattle driven away, but though an expedition was urged by the local authorities, the Government still refused to sanction one. At last, about the end of March 1860, Nauroz Khan, an adopted son of Saadat Khan of Lalpura, sent in seeking for peace, and finally it was agreed that bygones should be bygones, that the Chief of Lalpura should be responsible for the future peace of the frontier, that there should be something of a general amnesty, and that the blockade of the country should be raised.