MRS Jane Garnand, granddaughter of Dost Muhammad Brohi, came to Karachi in 1993. Her basic mission and aim for visiting Karachi was to trace the family roots of her grandfather, Dost Muhammad, and the grave of her slain grandmother, Annie (wife of Dost Muhammad) who was assassinated in Sharafi Garden, Malir, in Karachi on Aug 8, 1910. She was referred by the then Commissioner of Karachi to meet with Sattar Gabol, a former minister in Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s tenure as prime minister.
Jane Garnand was assisted by the Embassy of Australia while she was in touch with Sattar Gabol for her mission. She stayed in Karachi for about 10 days and during that period, met with the family of Dost Muhammad and Jorak, and visited several related places to find the grave of her grandmother which, after a thorough search, she learnt was in a former graveyard near the British Embassy in Clifton, Karachi.
Based on this experience, Mrs Garnand has written a book titled Story of my Grandfather from Lal Bakkar to Australia.
Her husband, a diplomat of Australia, was also stationed at China. He is now retired. Jane Garnand and her family now live in a city 400 miles away from Sydney.
Mrs Garnand is still in touch with Sattar Gabol through letters. The tragic story commences like this:
Australia, being a partly-desert country, had a need for camels, starting from the end of the 18th and up to the 19th Century. Camels from the Asian region, specially from Balochistan and Afghanistan, were very popular in Australia. At that time, steamships were used to travel abroad and it took several months to reach a destination. Ships commonly employed business routes, plying from India through Burma, Assam, Sri Lanka and then Australia.
It was the time when the British had discovered Australia. Our central character, Dost Muhammad Brohi (born in 1870) was the Amir (Lord) of his tribe and very much interested in exporting camels to Australia. He first visited Australia and landed at Albani in 1893 to asses the trading opportunities of camels in Australia from British India.
After analyzing the need for trading, Dost Muhammad, with his elder brother, Jorak (born in 1853), left for Australia in the year 1894 with 25 camels for selling. A few Afghans were also with them and the camels. After trading and selling camels, Jorak left for Karachi and thereafter several times visited Australia for business, while Dost Muhammad stayed back in Australia. In 1896, when he was 26, he married a British girl, Annie, who had been working in a bakery near his residence.
Life was well and Dost Muhammad and Annie had six children (3 boys and 3 girls), namely Mustafa, Haggu (nickname Bill), Ilyas, Fatima, Lillian, Janet.
Annie had two brothers, Harry and Bill. Dost Muhammad didn’t like them because they were drunk all the time. In Australia, drinking and visiting friends are common, but Dost Muhammad, being a Baloch and a Muslim, did not like it. He was a noble and honest person, famous for keeping deposits of people in Lyari.
He had serious disputes with his brothers-in-law and it was also rumoured that Dost Muhammad had also broken the arm of his brother-in-law, Bill, in a quarrel. His Afghan friends were also well aware of the disputes. These disputes grew and on the night of April 7, 1909, Bill and Harry killed Dost Muhammad by crushing his skull with a heavy piece of timber. They were charged with murder in May, 1909, and committed for trial. The record shows that for several years correspondence took place between the then prime minister of Australia and the Premier Provincial Minister of British India when the news broke out in the newspapers.
This news came to Karachi through the Afghan friends and the brothers of Dost Muhammad were shocked. Jorak with his two sons, Lal Muhammad and Qadir Bux, left for Australia to ascertain the cause of the murder and also to see if there was any property left by Dost Muhammad in Australia, because Jorak was the executor of Dost Muhammad’s will as per his wishes. The property left by him was to be divided between Annie and her children when they reached the age of 21.
Jorak pressurized and induced Annie to move to Karachi with her children where they could be given good English education and proper care. Jorak bought one-way tickets for them, but Annie suspected that Jorak would not keep the commitment of executing Dost Muhammad’s will.
Annie and the children left for Karachi and Jorak’s two sons accompanied Annie during the trip. Annie reached Karachi and stayed at Lal Bakkar and New Kumbharwara, Lyari, with relatives of Dost Muhammad. They were treated well because Dost Muhammad was a well-off person. A period of about one year passed peacefully and happily.
In Australia, Jorak finally arrived at the conclusion that Bill and Harry were involved in the murder of his brother. He then wrote a letter to his sons in Karachi, Gul Muhammad, Qadir Bux and Rozi, mentioning that Annie was responsible for conspiring with the murderers of their uncle, saying such words in Baloch in his letter as “Spethen gokaa bokosheen” meaning ‘Kill white cow’.
Somehow, Annie became aware of the threat to her life and approached the British authorities for help, whereafter she was taken with her children to a Malir residence surrounded by a garden, owned by Sharafees. At a mile’s distance there was a camp of British security officers.
From the evidence available, a group of attackers, including the sons of Jorak, armed with knives, daggers and axes, attacked the house on the night of Aug 8, 1910.
Annie and her two children were asleep on the same bed, while her eldest son, Mustafa, was sleeping outside in the verandah. It is believed that they entered through the window of the bathroom which was left open by Mustafa.
The attackers went into the house and attacked Annie with knives and axes. Some of her fingers were cut off and she resisted, but eventually was knifed to death. Some of her children were also wounded and they were taken to the Lady Dufferin Hospital.
According to the findings, a murder attempt was also made earlier, but there was a dog guarding the house and had failed.
Gul Muhammad, Qadir Bux and Rozi were arrested by the British India police and charged with murder. Rozi and Qadir Bux were released due to unavailability of solid evidence, but Gul Muhammad, being the prime suspect, remained in jail for one more year. Jorak was also wanted by the police, but he was in Australia.
Finally, five of Annie’s children were sent to Australia with a British officer. Mustafa remained in Karachi, married and died here.
