A Banyan tree in the Landi Kotal army cantonment has a placard that reads, “I am under arrest,” and it is chained up.
In Pakistan’s Khyber Agency, this “bound” tree has been detained for a century. In 1898, a British officer named James Squid thought the tree was lurching behind him while drunk, so he arrested it.
It has been chained and abandoned ever since at the army cantonment.
The tree was arrested in 1898
The tree has been restrained since 1898 According to a report in Dawn news, when a British officer who was intoxicated ordered the mess sergeant to arrest it because he believed it was headed in his direction.
However, this British officer’s irrational action back then had a deeper significance.
According to The Tribune, British officer James Squid threatened the indigenous people with this action. ‘Through this deed, the British basically suggested to the tribesmen that if they dared act against the Raj, they too would be punished in a similar fashion,’ Amran Shinwari, a resident of the army cantonment, told the daily.
According to the research, the banyan tree served as a metaphor for the Frontier Crimes Regulations, a harsh colonial rule that the British passed in 1901 to quell Pashtun rebellion to the Raj. The law permitted the government to punish citizens who disobeyed the law or rebelled against the government without justification.
I Am Under Arrest
A board is hanging on it, which says:
“I AM UNDER ARREST.’ ‘One evening a deeply drunk British officer thought that I was moving towards him from my original location and so ordered Mess Sergeant to arrest me. That is why I am under arrest’.
