Chattroh
Encyclopedia
Chattroh is a small village in the Dadyal
Dadyal
Dadyal or Dadyaal is a town situated in the Mirpur district of Azad Kashmir, Pakistan. The town consists of more than 70 smaller villages. Like much of the Mirpur District, Dadyal has descendants of inhabitants that emigrated to the United Kingdom between the 1950s and 1980s...

 tehsil
Tehsil
A Tehsil or Tahsil/Tahasil , also known as Taluk and Mandal, is an administrative division of some country/countries of South Asia....

 (sub-division) of Mirpur District
Mirpur District
Mirpur District is a district in the disputed and divided state of [Jammu and Kashmir]. The district is named after the main city, Mirpur. The District of Mirpur has a population of 371,000 and covers an area of . The district is mainly mountainous with some plains...

, Azad Kashmir
Azad Kashmir
Azad Jammu and Kashmir or Azad Kashmir for short, is the southernmost political entity within the Pakistani-administered part of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir...

, lying on the banks of the River Jhelum. Ancient Chattroh was founded by the rajput
Rajput
A Rajput is a member of one of the patrilineal clans of western, central, northern India and in some parts of Pakistan. Rajputs are descendants of one of the major ruling warrior classes in the Indian subcontinent, particularly North India...

 rulers of the valley of Indherhill.

Like much of Mirpur, Chattroh has deep connections with the UK. Many people originally from Chattroh have settled in the urban centres such as Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

 and Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

. The Cheetham Hill
Cheetham Hill
Cheetham Hill is an inner city area of Manchester, England. As an electoral ward it is known as Cheetham and has a population of 12,846. It lies on the west bank of the River Irk, north-northeast of Manchester city centre and close to the boundary with the City of Salford...

 district of Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

 is often referred to as New Chattroh (by Mirpuris), reflecting the fact that a large number of people from Chattroh live there. The town of Rochdale
Rochdale
Rochdale is a large market town in Greater Manchester, England. It lies amongst the foothills of the Pennines on the River Roch, north-northwest of Oldham, and north-northeast of the city of Manchester. Rochdale is surrounded by several smaller settlements which together form the Metropolitan...

 in Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.6 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford, Wigan, and the...

 also has a large number of people from Chattroh living in it. The link with the UK is immediately obvious on entering Chattroh, where one is greeted by palatial, hacienda-style residences, eerily empty, which have been built with remitted pounds. In this regard, Chattroh is no different from the rest of Mirpur, where links with the UK have precipitated various property booms since the 1960s.

History

When the Mangla Dam
Mangla Dam
The Mangla Dam is located on the Jhelum River in the Mirpur District of Azad Kashmir, Pakistan. It is the sixteenth largest dam in the world. It was built from 1961 to 1967 with funding from the World Bank. The project was designed and supervised by Binnie & Partners of London, and it was built...

 was created in the 1960s, Chattroh escaped relatively unscathed, with only land on the periphery affected. However, plans to raise the Mangla
Mangla Dam
The Mangla Dam is located on the Jhelum River in the Mirpur District of Azad Kashmir, Pakistan. It is the sixteenth largest dam in the world. It was built from 1961 to 1967 with funding from the World Bank. The project was designed and supervised by Binnie & Partners of London, and it was built...

 reservoir further, if implemented, are certain to affect properties in Chattroh. These plans, as well as the general property boom, have contributed to demand for habitable land (as in much of Mirpur
Mirpur District
Mirpur District is a district in the disputed and divided state of [Jammu and Kashmir]. The district is named after the main city, Mirpur. The District of Mirpur has a population of 371,000 and covers an area of . The district is mainly mountainous with some plains...

). This in turn has encouraged many unscrupulous people to take advantage of the archaic land laws and registers to make unmeritorious claims to premium land.

Politics

Chattroh also has a long history of involvement in politics. Ch Abbass Ali, Mirpur's representative to the assembly of Maharaja
Maharaja
Mahārāja is a Sanskrit title for a "great king" or "high king". The female equivalent title Maharani denotes either the wife of a Maharaja or, in states where that was customary, a woman ruling in her own right. The widow of a Maharaja is known as a Rajamata...

 Hari Singh
Hari Singh
Maharaja Hari Singh was the last ruling Maharaja of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir in India.He was married four times...

, the last Dogra
Dogra
The Dogras are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group in South Asia. Being a diversified group, the Dogras include both Savarnas such as Brahmins, Rajputs and Non-savarnas. The Dogras also incluide merchant castes such as Mahajans...

 ruler of Kashmir
Kashmir
Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range...

, was from Chattroh. In recent years, two MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

s for the Dadyal
Dadyal
Dadyal or Dadyaal is a town situated in the Mirpur district of Azad Kashmir, Pakistan. The town consists of more than 70 smaller villages. Like much of the Mirpur District, Dadyal has descendants of inhabitants that emigrated to the United Kingdom between the 1950s and 1980s...

 constituency of the state government have hailed from Chattroh, both of whom also served as State Ministers
Minister of State
Minister of State is a title borne by politicians or officials in certain countries governed under a parliamentary system. In some countries a "minister of state" is a junior minister, who is assigned to assist a specific cabinet minister...

. Choudhry Ali Mohammad Chacha, the ex Minister of Law of Azad Kashmir
Azad Kashmir
Azad Jammu and Kashmir or Azad Kashmir for short, is the southernmost political entity within the Pakistani-administered part of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir...

who was assassinated in Mirpur in March 2008, and Ch Masood Khalid advocate.As well as political figures, other great personalities such as Khalid Mahmood (cousin of Zafran Majid), a great writer of fiction has also descended from Chattroh.
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