Attock Fort was built at Attock Khurd during the reign of Akbar the Great from 1581 to 1583 under the supervision of Khawaja Shamsuddin Khawafi to protect the passage of the River Indus.It featured a prominent role in Afghan-Sikh Wars during the Battle of Attock. Today it is sandwiched between Peshawar Road on one side and the River Indus on the other.It was Akber’s massive fort, with a circumference of about two and a half kilometers dates from the late sixteenth century when, because of trouble at Kabul. Akber established a base here and set up a colony of river men to man the ferries. Their village stands on the river bank below the fort.When British came the strengthened the Attock fort and made the town the district headquarters and cantonment. It is still a strategic military installation for the Pakistan Army and visitors cannot enter it or take photographs. During the dry season Mughals crossed the river over a bridge of boats, which the British later anchored to piers on either side. Not long after this British engineers unsuccessfully attempted to bore a tunnel under the river. After this failed, they built a road and rail bridge in 1883 that served until the end of the 1970s when a new bridge was finished near the fort that saves precious minutes on the journey to Peshawar.
