May 19, 2002

The Attock Fort is an example of the Mughal era’s architectural grandeur, but it is in dire need of restoration so that a legacy can be preserved for future generations to enjoy

AS I entered the Attock Fort my heart leapt with joy. It was great to see the legacy of a grand era. I had finally made it. A visit to the Fort is restricted. It becomes more restricted when people are under trial there. Erected on hilly terrain above Indus, from where I could see the confluence of two rivers — Indus and Kabul — the Fort appeared as a unique model of archaeological splendour.

The Fort was established, according to the introductory plate inside the entrance gate for visitors, in 1571 by the Mughal emperor Jalal-ud-Din Akbar. It took two years of hard labour by thousands of men who worked day and night, including soldiers, slaves and people from Malahi Tola, a tribe from central Indian. It remained under Mughal control until 1812, after then it was captured by Sikhs from a Mughal general, until 1842, when it fell into the British hands and remained with their active control until 1947. There were different units, as it appears from a number of handmade insertions on the wall by the British officers with their names, but the British kept troops from beginning. A name scrawled by an officer inside the Fort wall, says, P.C.A. Hill, 1858. Since 1957, it has been under the control of the Pakistan army.

The Fort has never been open for public, nevertheless, people have been allowed by the officer in-charge to visit it. “They usually include a small group of college or university students, officers from civil service academy and VIPS. However, many other people who are friends of army officers are allowed on request to enter the Fort,” said an officer. “They are accompanied by a person from the Fort for orientation.”

Having undergone structural changes inside the Fort from time to time by the occupant authorities since the 1812, the archaeological appearance of the Fort is believed to be more or less the same. The places attracting visitors are its gates, a long thick surrounding wall with its parallel underneath tunnel, Turkish baths, tunnel gates and gallows.

There are four gates of the Fort. They were named Mori, Kabuli Lahori and Dehli gates by the Mughal architect. They were named after the cities whose direction they faced, except one (Mori) which was probably named after one of the Hindu queens of Emperor Akbar. Mori and Lahori gates are the ones most commonly used. All the gates are made of iron, with wooden work around with a curve from outside and with big sharp knobs in the middle. They all were designed to halt an attack by the invading forces’ elephants or a collective effort for a hit by the soldiers with a log dragged from distance, as was commonly done during those days by an invading army against a besieged army in a Fort.

Entering the Mori gate, one can see a white marble plate, faded with time, inside the tall front of porch, which carries the inscription of a verse in Persian about the glory of Emperor Akbar. There is a porch constructed by the Raja Ranjit Singh after his seizure of the Fort. From there the wall starts going around the Fort in a zigzag manner. The wall, more than one and half mile in length, is approximately 10 to 20 feet wide with an average height of 20 to 30 feet above the ground. The thickness of the wall provided a strong fortification against any invasion. From the Mori gate the wall descends, however, its height remains the same above the ground. Erected on difficult hillocks, reaching the base of a wall from outside the Fort is difficult due to the steep ascent — essential for fortification against invading forces in those days.

All over the wall are pickets constructed for archers, and slopes for pouring boiled water against the invading forces from top. Each picket is four to five feet wide, enabling anyone reaching the Fort from outside with the swing of a staircase. Parallel to the boundary wall is a tunnel — with a passage that is three feet wide and seven feet tall — inside the Fort built by Mughal for defence purposes. The tunnel, now stinting abode of bats and other insects, was to provide extra tactics for the forces at the Fort against an invasion. There are a number of narrow exits, the majority of them in a bad shape, from the tunnel. There is a narrow passage for walking besides the wall from inside the Fort, but nonetheless, one can easily fall from it.

In the middle of the Fort there are Mughal huammams which are now covered with domes and used by the army for storage purposes. The baths were built inside the ground with ventilation arrangements through big holes.

The Fort has a large number of rooms in all corners. To one interested in archaeology, this was not only a fort designed for accommodating the troops, but also as a residence for the royal family, so it included a harem. The Fort contained a large number of rooms and verandas for the living purpose of the royal families. Many of them are still in reasonable shape, though not in use. Some of them in the corner below the wall are turned into a barn for keeping hay and cattle to support a dairy farm for officers. Similarly, a vast area in the west of the Fort, now abandoned for any use, shows a number of rooms and verandas. Emperor Jahangir built a separate harem outside the Fort, known as Begum ke Sarai, now under the control of the archaeology department and open to public. The sarai was built in 1605. A few minutes walk from the Fort through a gate takes one to the sarai. Below the sarai are the tombs of Behran and Kanjari. At a closer distance, there is a small cemetery of British officers who died or were killed at Attock.

There are a few underground passages constructed during the Mughal period for a safe escape of royalty and troops from the Fort in case of any attack or insurgency of the enemy. They are all now abandoned and dumped.

“One may not be able to go inside beyond a few steps as it is all dark with possible fear of an insect’s bite,” said one officer at the Fort.” One of them is known as “Mughal scandal” due to a romantic legend linked to a Mughal princess. A Mughal princess was believed to have escaped each night through the passage with the help of a maid to see her lover outside the Fort. When this leaked out, the lover was arrested, blinded and hanged. It, like thousands shrouded in history, may be a fact or a story created about the Mughal princes and princesses.

In the far west is the gallows built by the Mughal. Below the gallows, now covered with an iron cage for safety purposes, is a deep well showing water in its bottom. Those accused were hanged to death and thrown into it from where the corpse went into the River Indus. “The body of someone hanged on the gallows was never found,” said one familiar with the history of the Fort.

The wooden passage to the gallows is from the middle of the wall from where an hanging was watched. Ranjit Singh believed to have hanged a large number of people to death on the gallows. It, however, is abandoned since then.

The Attock Fort is a legacy of a greater past when the Mughal, being the powerful rulers of the subcontinent, could afford building such forts to glorify their rule. The Fort, having not been open to the public in any age, and not much mentioned in achieves, has its own history. Its historical and archaeological legacy needs to be preserved.

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)