ਜਲਾਲਾਬਾਦਜਲਾਲਾਬਾਦ

Jalalabad is a municipal council town in Fazilka district in south-western Punjab, founded in the early 1800s as the capital of the Mamdot nawabi by Nawab Qutbuddin Khan and named after his son Nawab Jalaluddin Khan. The 2011 census counted 39,525 residents in the town and 356,027 in its tehsil. It is a mandi and administrative centre close to the India-Pakistan border, and its assembly constituency has been one of Punjab's highest-profile political seats.

ਇਤਿਹਾਸ

The Mamdot nawabi was created in the early 1800s, when Qutbuddin Khan took Mamdot from the Rai of Raikot. He built Jalalabad as his capital and named it for his son Jalaluddin. After Maharaja Ranjit Singh defeated Qutbuddin, the nawab was allowed to retain Mamdot as a jagir on a nominal tribute, so the town kept growing as a princely capital with a court and its retinue.

As a nawabi capital, Jalalabad had the makings of a small princely seat: a court, revenue officials and the traders who served them. The name itself is a marker of that era, tying the town to the Nawab Jalaluddin Khan who inherited his father's standing. The nawabi faded with the coming of direct British rule, but the town's position on the Ferozepur to ਫ਼ਾਜ਼ਿਲਕਾ route kept it commercially alive.

Partition in 1947 redrew the region's trade routes, and Jalalabad's commercial life settled around its grain market. The town developed into the bazaar and service centre for the surrounding farmland, and its railway station linked it to Ferozepur and the wider Malwa belt. When Fazilka district was carved out of Ferozepur district on 27 July 2011, Jalalabad became one of its three tehsils, alongside Fazilka and Abohar.

In November 2011 the town made sporting news when a multipurpose sports stadium was built here for the second World Kabaddi Cup, a mark of Jalalabad's place in Punjab's kabaddi heartland.

Where is Jalalabad?

Jalalabad stands at 30.62 N, 74.25 E in south-western Punjab, north-east of Fazilka city and about 11 to 15 km from the India-Pakistan border. Its average elevation is 176 metres. The town sits on the Ferozepur to Fazilka road, with PIN code 152024 and vehicle registration PB-61. The Jalalabad assembly constituency, number 79, falls under the Firozpur Lok Sabha seat.

Geography and people

The 2011 census counted 39,525 residents in the town and 356,027 in Jalalabad tehsil. The district around it is wheat, paddy, cotton and rice country, and Jalalabad town works as the market and service centre for dozens of surrounding villages. In the town, Hindus formed about 68.5 percent and Sikhs about 30.75 percent of the population in 2011. Punjabi is the mother tongue of the district's majority, with Bagri and Hindi also widely spoken.

Places of interest

The anaj mandi, the grain market, is the town's economic heart, especially in the wheat and paddy seasons, when farmers from the surrounding villages bring their produce for procurement. The sports stadium from the 2011 Kabaddi World Cup hosts local tournaments and training camps. Rice mills on the outskirts process the region's paddy and export rice, and the town's gurdwaras and mandirs serve its Hindu and Sikh residents.

The town's tehsil status gives it the usual cluster of block offices, schools and a civil hospital, which is why villages across a wide radius treat Jalalabad as their main market town. In the evening, the bazaar streets around the mandi fill with the small traders, commission agents and transport operators who run the town's agricultural economy.

Notable people

Jalalabad's best-known connection is political: the town's assembly seat has been held by senior leaders, and Sukhbir Singh Badal, the former Punjab deputy chief minister, won the Jalalabad by-election in 2009 and was re-elected from the seat in 2012 and 2017, before losing it in 2022 to Aam Aadmi Party candidate Jagdeep Kamboj Goldy.

Getting there

The town lies on the Ferozepur to Fazilka road and has its own railway station on the region's rail network. Fazilka Junction and Ferozepur are the nearest major rail hubs. From the town, the Pakistan border is a short drive to the west.

ਅੱਜ

Jalalabad remains a working mandi town whose economy rests on farming, grain trade and rice milling. Its kabaddi stadium keeps a sporting link alive, and the town's place in Punjab's political conversation, through its high-profile assembly seat, carries the Jalalabad name far beyond its size.