Karlal


The Karlal, also known as Karral, or Kiraal, are a Hindko-speaking tribe in the Hazara Division, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan.

Etymology and origins

The Karlal oral tradition states that the tribe is descended from a man named Karral Shah who had migrated to present-day Abbottabad district from the present-day border of southern Pakistan with Afghanistan.

After Pakistan's independence

In 1957, Mohammad Abdul Ghafoor Hazarvi, a Karlal, became the first recipient of the highest civilian award of Pakistan, the Nishan-e-Imtiaz. Most Karlals today are still living in their ancestral villages in the Galiyat and the Nara tract of the Abbottabad District. More recently, the Karlals, along with some other tribesmen of Hazara, have engaged in a political struggle to separate the Hazara Division from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in order to form a Hazara Province.