Phillaurਫਿਲੌਰ

History

Phillaur's story begins with a name: a Sanghera Jat called Phul founded it as Phulnagar. Under Sher Shah Suri (1540–45) a sarai — a fortified inn for traders and armies — was raised here on the imperial road, and Shah Jahan revived it as an imperial sarai. During the misl period the Sikh chief Sudh Singh Kang made it his headquarters, and in 1809 Maharaja Ranjit Singh rebuilt the sarai as a full military fort. It was designed by his general Dewan Mohkam Chand with the help of the Maharaja's French and Italian officers, as a deliberate answer to the British fort across the Sutlej at Ludhiana — after the Treaty of Amritsar (1809), Phillaur became the Sikh Empire's border post.

After the Sikh defeat at Aliwal in 1846 the British took the fort, using it as an artillery depot and then, from 1891, as a police training centre — India's oldest. The Finger Print Bureau set up here in 1892 is among the region's oldest forensic institutions. In 1973 the Punjab government renamed it the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Fort, and since 1981 it has housed the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Punjab Police Academy. The fort complex also holds the shrine of Pir Baba Abdullah Shah Ji, revered by local Muslims.

Geography & people

Phillaur stands on the Grand Trunk Road at about 234 metres above sea level, on the north bank of the Sutlej — the river that divides the Doaba from the Malwa. The railway bridge beside the old road still carries the line to Ludhiana. The town's population was counted at 25,449 in the 2011 census. Punjabi dominates; the town's mohallas mix old trading families with police-academy staff and railway workers.

The Sutlej's floodplain gives Phillaur greener, lower-lying fields than the towns to its north, and the river's ghats remain part of local life.

Places of interest

The fort is the sight: red-brick ramparts with European-style bastions and watchtowers, channels dug along its boundary walls, the police academy's museum of historical artefacts, and the dargah of Pir Baba Abdullah Shah Ji within the complex. The Sutlej riverfront and the old GT Road bridge complete the picture. Note that the fort is a working academy with restricted access — plan accordingly.

Notable people

Phillaur's most famous son is Sher Muhammad Khan — better known by his pen name Ibn-e-Insha (1927–1978), the beloved Urdu poet and humorist of 'Insha Ji Uttho' fame, who was born here before Partition carried his family to Pakistan. The town also remembers Dewan Mohkam Chand, the general whose design gave the fort its European character, and the generations of police officers trained within its walls.