Akora Khattak

Akora Khattak or Sarai Akora is a town in Jehangira tehsil of Nowshera District in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.

Location

Akora Khattak is located around 14-km to the east of Nowshera city in Nowshera District on Grand Trunk Road. Akora Khattak was formerly called Sarai Akora, and is named after Malik Akor Khan Khattak, who was the great-grandfather of the famous Pashtun warrior and poet, Khushal Khan Khattak.

Jat clans

• Khattak

History

When the emperor “Sher Shah Suri’s army dug two wells in this place and made it a rest place and named the place Sarai Malik Pura. Caravans came from the Central Asia for trading purpose and stayed at this place.

In 1581 Mughal emperor Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar came to Peshawar to finish the mutiny of his brother ‘Mirza Hakeem’ and stayed there for a few years. During this stay, he met (jarga) with all the tribal chiefs for the betterment of the area. In the meeting the name of Malik Akor Khan often came up. It was reported to the emperor that Malik Akor Khan was a robber and often robbed the troops on the highway. He lived at Neelab (Nizampur) and continually created problems for the Mughal government. The emperor Jalal-ud-din Mohammad Akbar decided to resolve this problem by making Malik Akor Khan a government servant and charged him with the responsibility of collecting tolls from the caravans on the crossing of the Indus at Attock.

Malik Akor Khan came to the Sarai Malik Pura (Akora Khattak) for this purpose and made this area his living place. In time this place was renamed as Sarai Akora which later became “Akora Khattak”.

In 1820 Sikhs of Panjab conquered Peshawar and other Pathan areas and ruled it up to 1849. In 1826 the Mujahidin-I-Islam (Sayed Ahmad Barelvi) fought a battle against Sikhs at this place. In 1834 Sardar lehna Singh built the fort of Akora Khattak near the river Kabul.

Akora Fort

Shabqadar Fort was built by S. Lehna Singh Sandhanwalia. Tota Ram was the Chief Architect under whose supervision it was constructed. It was called Shankargarh after the name of latter's son who was born during its construction. S. Lehna Singh Sandhanwalia also built the Akora Fort of Khattaks. Akora was the chief village of the northern Khataks, 25 kms from Naushahra and 18 km from Attock and one km from the right bank of the Kabul River.

References

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