Nagri Tutial

Nagri Tutial is one of the 51 union councils of Abbottabad District in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.Origins of nameNagri Tutial or the town of the Tutials is named after a Dhund Abassi chief Toota Khan, who was a son of Doomat KhanThe Haro River cuts across the village of Nagri Totial.The village, lies at an elevation of 4,081 feet, and has a unique story to tell. It has seen Hindus and Sikhs co-habit with the Muslims till the partition when they fled in large numbers to India. The remains of the chamber where Hindus used to burn their dead still exist. “We lived together in peace and harmony. But soon after the creation of Pakistan, Hindus and Sikhs left the valley. The villagers provided them a safe escape,” says Mohammad Nasim Qamar, a retired school teacher of the area.The British used the area it as a summer retreat as many prominent officials of the empire visited the village numerous times. It was here that the first Muslim provincial minister of the British Raj Khan Bahadur Abdul Rehman was born, who went on to mobilise the Hazaras to vote in favour of uniting with Pakistan during the NWFP referendum in 1947. He later became a member of the executive council of the Pakistan Muslim League and grew close to Mohammad Ali Jinnah. His was a lineage that produced other politicians like Sardar Khan, his younger brother, and Sardar Inayatur Rehman Abbasi, his nephew.Mostly hailing from the ‘Totialian’ branch of the Dhund Abbassid tribe (named after Toota Khan, an Abbasi chief) in the Hazara division, the villagers of Nagri Totial have settled on a stretch lying south-east of Abbottabad up till Ghora Gali near Murree in the east. Some Qureshis, Awans and Bhattis etc also live here.