Jamrud

The fort at Jamrud sits at the eastern mouth of the Khyber Pass. Hari Singh Nalwa built it in 1836 to close the pass, and it is the furthest west any Indian power held ground in the nineteenth century.

In April 1837 an Afghan force under the sons of Dost Muhammad Khan attacked while the main Sikh army was at Lahore for a wedding. The garrison of about six hundred held. Hari Singh Nalwa came up with a relief force and was mortally wounded on 30 April.

The account holds that his death was kept from the garrison and from the enemy until reinforcements arrived, and that the fort was not taken.

The Afghans withdrew. The frontier stayed on the Khyber until 1849, when the British inherited it and spent the next century trying to hold the same line.

The fort stands. It is in the Khyber district of Pakistan and is not accessible to visitors.

The fort was begun in December 1836 at the mouth of the Khyber and, according to the accounts, finished in under two months, to hold the pass.

Hari Singh Nalwa Ji was killed in the fighting there in April 1837, and the account is that his death was concealed from the garrison until relief arrived.

It is the furthest north west point any Punjab-based power reached. It stands in the Khyber district of Pakistan, in country that has been fought over continuously since.

What we don't know

  • Whether the concealment of Hari Singh Nalwa's death is fact or a later addition.

Where to check this

Named but not linked. These are real, findable documents. This project has not consulted them for this page.

  • Contemporary Afghan and Sikh sources on 1837.

This page has not yet been read through by the editor. Treat it with more caution than the rest.

How this page was written. The text is compiled from the standard published histories and reference works, not from a document held in hand. Nobody from this project has visited the place or read the archive. The list above is where a reader can go to check it, not a record of what was consulted line by line. Dates and figures are the received account. If you hold something better, write in and it will be corrected.

This is one of 30 accounts in The Sarkar, the chapter of this site covering Ranjit Singh Ji's state, 1799 to 1849.