afghanistanJohn Conolly as a form of compensation, for the pir was angry that he
had not received his rightful share of war booty. Mir Hajji then relieved
Conolly of large sums of cash, forced him to sign credit notes on the
Calcutta Treasury and used the cash to bribe his rivals and pay his ghazis.
Meanwhile ’Amin Allah Logari tried to secure the pir’s loyalty by granting
him the right to taxes levied on the houses in the Old City.
At the end of April 1842 Nawab Zaman Khan and ’Amin Allah Khan
fought another battle, this time for the right to control the revenues of
Kabul’s Customs House. In an attempt to restore order, Nawab Zaman
Khan proposed that these revenues be apportioned to Mir Hajji instead
in order to pay for the jihad against Pollock. ’Amin Allah Khan’s response
was to arrest Mir Hajji, so drawing the Kohistani ghazis into the power
struggle. Mir Hajji was eventually released after he pledged his loyalty
to Shah Fath Jang, but he renounced his oath as soon as he was set free
and joined forces with Nawab Zaman Khan. ’Amin Allah Khan Logari,
outnumbered, sought refuge in the Bala Hisar but while Fath Jang agreed
to give him sanctuary, he refused to allow any of the Logar chief ’s 4,000
armed retainers to enter the citadel. Instead they returned home and Fath
Jang lost his opportunity to reinforce the Bala Hisar’s defences.
A few days later the combined forces of Nawab Zaman Khan and
Mir Hajji besieged the Bala Hisar, but shortly after the siege commenced
Akbar Khan and Muhammad Shah arrived in Kabul with a large force of
Shinwaris and Babakr Khel Ghilzais. Nawab Zaman Khan had little choice
but to relinquish command of the Muhammadzai forces to Akbar Khan,
who sent ’Amin Allah Khan Logari a copy of an intercepted dispatch from
Calcutta ordering Pollock to retire to India. This news dashed any hope
that the British would come to the king’s rescue and all but a handful of
the defenders in the Bala Hisar surrendered.
Shah Fath Jang, probably realizing he would be put to death, refused
to capitulate despite having only a handful of Arab and Nubian ghulams to
protect him, so Akbar Khan sent the Babakr Khel Ghilzais to occupy the
Sher Darwaza heights. They then proceeded to mount a captured British
field gun on the Bala Burj, the tower that dominated the Upper Bala Hisar,
and opened fired at point-blank range on the defenders. On 7 May Darwish
Muhammad Khan, commander of the king’s ghulams, accepted the inev-
itable and opened the citadel gates to Muhammad Shah’s Ghilzais, while
Akbar Khan stood guard to prevent Nawab Zaman Khan or any of his rivals
entering the citadel. Fath Jang was confined to a small room in the Upper
Bala Hisar and over the ensuing weeks Akbar Khan extorted what wealth
the king had left, using the proceeds to buy the loyalty of the Qizilbash and