Rai Ahmad Khan Kharal
Chief of the Kharals of the Ravi bar who led the tribes of the Gogera country against the East India Company in 1857, and was killed at prayer.
Ahmad Khan Kharal was born around 1776 at Jhamra, in the bar country between the Ravi and the Chenab near today's Faisalabad, and became chief of the Kharals, a Muslim Jat tribe of herders and cattle-raiders who had never taken easily to any government.
When the rising of 1857 broke out, the British at Gogera demanded men and horses from the tribes. Ahmad Khan refused, and in July the tribes attacked the Gogera jail to free their imprisoned kinsmen. For two months he led a guerrilla war across the bar with the Fatyanas, Wattoos and other tribes, tens of thousands strong at its height according to the British records.
On 21 September 1857 a British detachment found him in the Gashkori jungle and shot him while he was at afternoon prayer. His head was displayed at Gogera, until one of his followers stole it and buried it at Jhamra. He is remembered in the dhola songs of the bar, and in Pakistan as a hero of 1857.