Attock's historic sites invite tourists.

Byline: Zulfiqar Baig

ISLAMABAD -- On the right bank of the mighty Indus River and on the confluence of two provinces lies the small, but historic town of Attock Khurd. For centuries, this town and its surrounding areas have served as a key gateway for forces on either side of the river.

Even as the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government in the centre, Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa talk prioritizing the tourism sector in the country, there seems to be little done to either preserve historical sites, develop them for tourism or ensure easy access to the sites.

The historical Attock Khurd area first rose to prominence after the general area saw the mighty armies of Alexander the Great pass through it as they made their way into the Indian subcontinent to expand the Greek empire.

Centuries later, Attock would regain significance, this time for a new set of conquerors in the Indian subcontinent. The Mughals, particularly Akbar (another great), saw Attok Khurd as key to defending passage into northern Punjab from the Afghans.

For this purpose, he built the Attock Fort from 1581 to 1583 to guard the key route. However, centuries later, the fort and the area would fall under Afghan rule with Ahmad Shah Durrani coming to rule sections of the area under a treaty.

It later fell to the Sikhs who in turn saw the British settle in the area.

While the former worked to strengthen existing structures and fortifications - using the fort and the surrounding area for defence against western forces, the British sought the opposite: a staging base to launch expansions west of the Indus.

For this purpose, a railway station was built near the bank of the river in 1880, just two kilometres south of the fort. Built using stone, the station has a traditional Victorian design which was popular around colonial India at the time.

The British laid a railway track which would ultimately extend all the way into Afghanistan. But with the river in the way, an iron bridge was built across it in 1883.

The government, though, built a new set of bridges across the Indus as part of the Islamabad-Peshawar motorway.

However, the road which links the Grand Trunk (GT) Road to the Attock Khurd station and the historic bridge, lies in ruins, making access for tourists from Punjab an almost impossibility.

The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government, however, has been quite active in this regard, with its tourism department frequently organising train trips to the railway station across...