Colonel Khushwaqt-ul-Mulk کرنل خوشوخت الملک

Telegraph -Chitral is Pakistan's northernmost district. Bounded on the north-west by the Hindu Kush, on the north-east by the Karakoram and on the south by the Hindu Raj range, it acceded to Pakistan on the country's creation in 1947.

Colonel Khushwaqt-ul-Mulk, who died on February 12 aged 96, was a scion of the royal dynasty which once ruled Chitral, a princely state of British India; as a soldier he took on the Faqir of Ipi and protected his nephew from the vengeance of a jilted Nawab of Dir.

That Chitral became a part of British India at all (and thus of Pakistan) is an accident of history. Its formidable ruler during the second half of the 19th century, Aman-ul-Mulk, entered into an alliance with the administration in India in 1885 whereby, in exchange for their guarantee to defend the area, he undertook to be loyal to the British.

This pact led to the stationing of a small garrison of Indian Army troops under British command in upper Chitral, where British authorities were concerned about Russian intentions in what has become known as the Great Game.

Aman-ul-Mulk's death in 1892 was followed by a war of succession, eventually settled in favour of the second youngest of his many sons, Shuja-ul-Mulk (later Sir Shuja-ul-Mulk, or "Sugar and Milk"), a boy of 12 who went on to rule successfully for 40 years, forming a stable relationship with the British.

Khushwaqt, who was born in the royal fort on June 13 1913, was Shuja-ul-Mulk's ninth son. At 13, he was sent to be educated at the Prince of Wales Royal Indian Military College at Dehradun, 150 miles north of Delhi. Travel to the plains of North India from Chitral in those days was no easy matter. Reaching the nearest railhead at Dargai (a little north of Peshawar) involved a 10-day journey by horse, crossing the Lowari Pass and the Pathan territories of Dir, Swat and the Malakand. En route, Khushwaqt was accompanied by the British Political Agent.

Once his schooling was complete he was commissioned in July 1935 and initially attached to the 2nd Battalion the Green Howards. The next year he was appointed to the Indian Army and joined the 19th Hyderabad Regiment. In the meantime, following his father's death in 1936 and the accession to the rulership of his eldest brother, ul-Mulk became Governor of upper Chitral from its centre in Mastuj.

During the war he saw action in Malaya and Burma at a time when Japanese forces were in the ascendant. Then, in 1942, he secured an attachment to the South Waziristan Scouts, who had the function of maintaining peace in the difficult tribal areas of South Waziristan. Circumstances in these areas were no less demanding for the authorities then than they are today. Then it was the notorious Faqir of Ipi and the insurrection that he led that engaged the efforts of the civil and military authorities.

With the creation of Pakistan in 1947, ul-Mulk transferred to the new Pakistan Army, remaining with the South Waziristan Scouts, of which in due course he was appointed commandant. In 1950 a detachment of the Scouts had to be deployed to the Lowari Pass. This was to prevent an incensed Nawab of Dir from sending a force of Pathan tribesmen into Chitral to exact revenge from ul-Mulk's nephew who, having recently acceded to the rulership of Chitral, had secretly married a cousin who was already engaged to the Nawab's son. The invasion was thwarted.

For three years ul-Mulk then served in Quetta as Deputy Inspector-General of the Frontier Corps. Command of the 5th Frontier Force Regiment followed this appointment. In 1956 he was posted to East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) as Commandant of the East Pakistan Rifles in the temporary rank of brigadier.

A year later he retired from the army before, in 1959, taking an appointment as a political adviser to the US Consulate in Peshawar, a post which lasted until 1978. He then worked for several years (initially with CARE Pakistan and later with UNICEF) on a health and sanitation programme for the huge numbers of Afghans who had taken refuge in North West Frontier Province from the Soviet-backed regime which had taken control in Kabul. Between 1986 and 1991 he worked for a similar, Danish-run, scheme which involved regular forays into Afghanistan.

Between 1991 and 1994 he helped the Brooke Hospital, the British-based equine charity, to set up a centre in Pakistan that now treats many animals every year.

Retirement from full-time military service, and later from civilian employment, enabled him to spend more time at his home in the fort in Mastuj. Of traditional Chitrali design, this imposing structure consists of high mud walls with a square tower at each corner. But its daunting outer appearance belied the warmth of hospitality which the constant stream of visitors from all parts of the globe could always be assured of receiving within.

Throughout his life, ul-Mulk was blessed with robust good health. A natural horseman, accomplished shot and one-time whipper-in with the Peshawar Vale Hunt, he was short and powerfully built. The local form of polo (altogether more physical than its Hurlingham equivalent) was his particular favourite.

The sport was an activity open to all. Each village had its rough polo ground. Mastuj's lay on the floor of the valley below the fort, so that Khushwaqt was able to indulge to the full his interest in the game, which he continued to play until late middle age. He did not give up riding until he was in his eighties.

Advancing years did not diminish his concern for the wellbeing of the peoples of Mastuj and its feeder valleys. In particular, he championed the cause of local road improvement, pressed for the construction of a new bridge to ease access, and urged improvements to further the health and education of the mostly poor people in the district's scattered villages.

In 1991, aged 78, he led a movement to open an all-weather road along the Kunar/Chitral river valley by walking into Chitral from the Afghan side (despite the presence of Soviet-era minefields). By demonstrating the feasibility of the idea, his feat, combined with intensive lobbying, ended with the opening of a vehicle route shortly afterwards.

In later years he remained increasingly in his Mastuj, especially as his wife, Shahadat, whose father had come to Chitral in 1895 with the celebrated relief force led by George Robertson that secured Shuja-ul-Mulk in power, was loth to leave the place of her birth.

On the day following Khushwaqt-ul-Mulk's death the Namaz Janaza funeral rites took place in the royal fort in Chitral, in the very room in which he had been born. His grave, which overlooks the junction of the valleys and is within sight of his fortress home, is next to that of Shahadat, who died in 2007. He is survived by two sons and three daughters. Another son and daughter predeceased him.

Khushwaqt-ul-Mulk, like most of his brothers, and as custom allowed, had two wives. His other wife, a daughter of the leader of a related tribe to whom he had become betrothed on the instructions of his father when he was only two years old (and she only four), died in 1995.