Owais Mughal

We have briefly covered Attock Bridge in our earlier posts at ATP titled: The Bridges of Pakistan and When Kabul Comes to Attock. Today’s whole post is dedicated to this great bridge’s importance in Pakistan’s Railway network, its history, salient features and its current condition.

The photo of Attock Bridge above is circa 1999 and courtesy of Malcolm Peakman. Double header Steam locomotives are binging a tourist special over the bridge.

The Crossing at Attock:
As soon as the British annexed area around present day Punjab-NWFP boundary, they started working on the idea of bridging Indus at Attock. The crossing at Attock was considered very important for military strategic reasons. In 1853, one Colonel Crommelin proposed two designs, both which made use of suspension bridges to cross the Indus. While this design didn’t go forward, British provided a better bridge of boats for winter, ferry boats for summer and a light rowing boat for daak (postal services).

Pervaiz Munir Alvi

Muslims first arrived in areas now constituting southern half of Pakistan – mostly Sindh and Balochistan in Eighth century A.D. when ships of Arab general Mohammad bin Qasim landed somewhere near the mouth of the Indus river and then traveled upriver all the way to the important city of Multan in lower Punjab. Thus bringing most of the commerce routes from the Indus valley to Mesopotamia through Balochistan and Persia under their control.

The areas now constituting northern half of Pakistan – Punjab, Kashmir and Frontier did not come under the Muslim control till the beginning of the eleventh century when the armies of Sultan Mahmood of Gazna, present day Afghanistan, came down through the mountain passes demolishing temples and the statuary within, unfortunate enough to be in their way. The newcomers, along with a new religion, also introduced new forms of visual arts and architecture to this land and its people.

Babar Bhatti

I found this hilarious message at Karachi Metroblog. The spelling mistakes are included for free for your entertainment.

By the way, don’t forget to send the NIC with your phone if you want the millions promised below.

LOL – this guy sends spam via sms and asks you to mail all the info!