The ancient Salt Range ruled mainly by the native Janjua Rajputs is dotted with a number of historic sites.

This jagged hilly tract, which rises near Sohawa, the west of Jhelum River and ends precipitously on the Indus River near Kalabagh, had been one of the foremost battlegrounds not only for the foreign invaders but also for the native rulers as the farmers had to deal with the Janjua Rajputs in order to advance towards the throne of Lahore and Delhi (as the main route called Nandna Pass was here) and the latter had to fight against the Janjua Rajputs in order to occupy the salt mines.

For their protection, the native rulers of Salt Range had built a number of forts on the peaks of the mountains. The historic Kussak Fort is one of those bastions of Janjua rulers.

The fort is situated in the picturesque Jhangar Valley of tehsil Choa Saidan Shah some 38km from Chakwal city. The road which branches from Choa Saidan Shah descends into the fascinating hamlet of Kussak after passing through Minhala and Watli. The Kussak village lies at the foothills while the ruins of the historic fort rest on the peak of the Mountain of Jodh.

Although it is generally believed that Kussak Fort was built by Raja Jodh (one of the sons of legendary Janjua ruler Raja Mall Khan who built the famous Malot Fort during the 10thcentury) during the 11th century, its ruins suggest that the castle of Kussak was much older than Malot. A famous British magazine in an article published in 1894 claimed that the Kussak Fort was even there 20 centuries ago and its rulers “heard from their hawk’s nest the drums and tramplings of a hundred conquests. They were at Kussak before Alexander broke in upon the seclusion of India. They had seen the steel-clad phalanx of the Macedonians march past in the plain below them, had watched Nearchus organise his flotilla, had heard the wild horsemen of Timur thunder by and had seen the fugitives return from the three battles at Panipat”.

According to historians, Kussak Fort suffered a brutal attack by Jalaluddin Firoz Shah Khilji, the first king of Khilji Dynasty in India, in 1290 AD. After receiving a crushing defeat by Khilji, the rulers of Kussak regained their power with the passage of time. They were about to be invaded by Amir Taimur in 1398 AD but instead of going into the war, the rulers of Kussak State used diplomacy assuring Taimur to provide logistic support to him in conquering Delhi.

Kussak’s waterloo moment arrived in 1810 when its last ruler Sultan Fateh Mohammad Khan himself bought a war against the mighty Sikh ruler Ranjit Singh.

The Spectator’s issue of 1894, Volume 74, page 267 offers a fascinating account of the epic battle waged between Sultan Fatheh Mohammad Khan and Maharaja Ranjit Singh.

“If Sir Alfred Lyall or Mr Rudyard Kipling would tell it in verse the world would say that no better theme for a ballad of war had ever been known”, the magazine wrote.

The last lord of the Kussak Fort and twenty seven villages, Sultan Fatheh Mohammad Khan, accepted the lordship of Ranjit Singh but soon a dispute occurred over the salt duties when the local Sikh governor realised that the Lord of the Kussak was not paying enough. He summoned the ruler of the Kussak but the latter refused his order with scorn, telling the messenger that the governor himself should come to him. At this, the governor came along with his squad of twenty men. However, during the negotiations something went wrong which boiled the blood of the Sultan and “on a sudden impulse, the old man bade his retainers seize the Sikhs, tie them back to back in pairs, and hurl them down the eastern precipice. Think of what this meant for the men waiting below. They had seen their chief go through the wicket-gate an hour or two before, and now the castle spewed their bodies over the great precipice. Horror-stricken, they fled to bear the news to Runjeet”.

At this, Ranjit himself led his army to attack Kussak but in five months’ long siege, Ranjit could not dent the power of the ruler of Kussak who kept on laughing at the impotence of the Sikh Army. Later, Ranjit blocked the water supply from the village and water stored in the tanks of the fort consumed after a few days. As the Sultan’s army was left without drinking water, he decided to surrender at the terms offered by the Sikh ruler who assured him that he would receive the grant of fifteen villages for his life.

Currently, the Kussak Fort and its surrounding area are owned by the family of PML-N MPA Mehwish Sultana whose father Raja Azmat Hayat also remained an MPA.

Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2024