The advance commenced on the morning of the 12th, and Pailam and Kotkai were occupied by either column without any more opposition than was occasioned by some desultory firing at the River Column from across the Indus. On the next day the Right Column moved on to and halted at Tilli, while the River Column visited the Palosi plain and also Nadrai on the right bank, experiencing some opposition, but reconnoitring the road between Kotkai and Kanar. By the 15th it was reported that while the Hassanzais and Akazais were anxious to submit, other clans were gathering against us—mostly in the trans-Indus Chagarzai country.
About 3 a.m. on the 19th a weak company of the 4th Sikhs, providing an outpost at the small village of Ghazi Kot, on the left bank of the Indus, was heavily attacked by a large body of Hindustani fanatics. Reinforcements, however, furnished by the 4th Sikhs and 32nd Pioneers, were quickly on the scene, and the enemy were driven off with considerable loss. The following night there was a good deal of firing at Kanar; on the 21st the River Column had reached Palosi via Pirzada Bela; and the Right Column occupied Ril the same day, destroyed Seri on the next, and then returned to Tilli.
On the 23rd the establishment of a bridge at Bakrai was covered by a party of the 4th Sikhs, who were opposed by a large gathering of the enemy on the Diliarai Hill, overlooking Bakrai and about one mile to the north-west of that place. The enemy were driven off the hill, but on the Sikhs and Guides withdrawing to a position lower down, they were followed up so determinedly that Lieut.-Colonel Gaselee of the 4th Sikhs again advanced, and cleared and reoccupied the hill for the night. The fighting had been hand-to-hand, and the enemy—chiefly Chagarzais and Hindustanis—suffered rather heavily.
On the 24th Brigadier-General Hammond took a small force from Tilli to Palosi, and thence next day advanced up the Shal Nala against Darbanai—a village on a knoll jutting out from the main spur into the Indus Valley. The enemy were driven off this commanding position, and on the 27th General Hammond moved into lower Surmal and burnt some of the Chagarzai villages.
The gatherings of the tribesmen had now increased. There were a number of Bunerwals at Baio and in this neighbourhood, and in the Chagarzai country to the north there appeared to be a coalition of all the clans from Thakot to the Peshawar border—from Buner, Chamla, and from the Amazai and Gadun country. In consequence of these concentrations of clans, a regiment of cavalry and a battalion of infantry were ordered up from Nowshera to Mardan, and, with the troops already in garrison at the last-named place, were held in readiness for service against the Bunerwals; and the reserve brigade from Rawal Pindi was concentrated at Darband. At the same time representations were made to the Buner jirgah that we had no intention of invading either their country or that of the Chagarzais, but that they would be attacked if their forces did not disperse. These warnings had the desired effect, and the Bunerwals returned to their homes, while the lower Hassanzais had already made their submission. Towards the end of April the whole of the country of the Akazais, who still remained recalcitrant, was visited, and shortly after Darband was evacuated and the base transferred to Oghi; but it was not until a month later that the Akazai jirgah at last came in and tendered the unconditional submission of the tribe. The three Isazai divisions, with the Saiyids and Chagarzais of Pariari, consented to the perpetual banishment from their territories of a notorious disturber of the peace, one Hashim Ali, and promised generally to be of good behaviour and to exclude the Hindustani fanatics from their country.