HARIPUR CITY OF PEACE

Haripur (Urdu: ہری پور) is a district in the Hazara region of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwaprovince of Pakistan. Haripur District has the highest Human Development Index of all districts in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Haripur District is situated at latitude 33° 44' to 34° 22' and longitude 72° 35' to 73° 15' and about 610 meters above the sea level.

History

Haripur district is situated in the heart of ancient Gandhara civilization. In the winter of 327/326 BC, Alexander the Great personally led a campaign against the clans; the Aspasioi of Kunar valleys, the Guraeans of the Guraeus valley, and the Assakenoi of the Swat and Buner valleys. A fierce contest ensued with the Aspasioi in which Alexander himself was wounded in the shoulder by a dart but eventually the Aspasioi lost the fight. Alexander then faced the Assakenoi, who fought bravely and offered stubborn resistance to Alexander in the strongholds of Massaga, Ora and Aornos.  The fort of Massaga could only be reduced after several days of bloody fighting in which Alexander himself was wounded seriously in the ankle. According to Curtius, "Not only did Alexander slaughter the entire population of Massaga, but also did he reduce its buildings to rubbles". Some of the soldiers settled in the areas of Gandhara; present Haripure is among the areas where the Greek soldiers settled in. In 1399, Central Asian conqueror Amir Timur, on his way back from his Indian campaign, left a legion of Karlugh Turksin the current Hazara region of Pakistan as the rulers.The Karlugh Turks continued to rule most of Hazara until 1703 but gradually lost their control via depradations by other tribes and peoples. Subsequently, parts of the Hazara, especially the present Haripur area, came under theDurrani/Abdali Afghan rule; and along with parts of the present Attock district of Punjab, the area was administered by the Tarin/Tareensardars or chiefs, who were formally appointed 'Hakim's (Governors). In due course, c 1820-21, the Hazara—including Haripur—fell to theLahore Sikh Khalsa , led by Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

The Sikhs annexed Hazara in two stages. Lower Hazara became tributary to the Sikhs as soon as they wrested the Fort of Attock from theDurranis, although some tribes such as the Tarins/Tareens kept on resisting for quite some time afterwards. Upper Hazara suffered a similar fate when the Sikhs took Kashmir from the Barakzais in 1819. The town of Haripur (meaning 'Hari's town') was founded in 1822 by Hari Singh Nalwa, the Commander-in-Chief of Ranjit Singh's army along its north-west frontier. On the successful completion of his tenure as the Governor of Kashmir in 1821, Pakhli and Damtaur were bestowed upon Nalwa as a jagir in 1822. As soon as Hari Singh Nalwa received this grant, he built the walled town of Haripur in the heart of the Haripur plain. To the north of this flowed the river Dor and to its south lay the country of the Gakhars. To its east ran a mountainous range; and to its west stood the Gandhgarh Hills. The selection of this site by Hari Singh was interesting because some of the most fierce encounters with the tribes inhabiting this region had been fought by the Sikhs in this vicinity.

Hari Singh's name and the presence of his fort of Harkishangarh eventually brought such a feeling of security to the region, that by 1835 a German traveller found mere remnants of the four-yard thick and 16 yards high wall built to initially protect the town.

Haripur was the sole example of a planned town in this region till the British built Abbottabad many years later. Haripur continued to grow and flourish and eventually became a city and then a District. The first British Deputy Commissioner, James Abbott, painted an exquisite picture of the town of Haripur and its commanding fort of Harkishangarh.