Kahuta

The name "kahuta" was originated from the name of tree, extensively founded there. The local name of the tree is "koh".

It was named after the ancestor of the Kahut tribe(Son of Said Nawab ali)[1].In 1813, the small town of Kahuta was conquered by the Sikh Army who were marching through the region towards the city of Attock, thus incorporating the town into Maharaja Ranjit Singh's territories. In 1820, Maharaja Ranjit Singh awarded Kahuta and the surrounding areas to his trusted general Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu, who had been under the service of Ranjit Singh for the past eight years. These territories were now under the suzerainty of Jammu. During Dogra rule of this region, there were many rebellions by the local Muslim population however all of these rebellions were met with brutal force by the Dogra troops leaving many Muslims in this region to either flee or be killed. Many women were also sold into the Heera Mandi markets of Jammu and Lahore. The most brutal of these rebellions occurred after Hari Singh Nalwa's death in 1837. After his death, many Yusufzai Pashtun tribes in the region went into revolt against the Sikh and Dogra administrators. Raja Gulab Singh was given the job to crush these rebellions in the Murree and Hazara hills. At first the insurgents were successful, under the leadership of Shamas Khan, a Sudhan, who had been a confidential follower of Raja Dhian Singh. The whole country had risen, and all the hill forts of the Jammu Raja had fallen into their hands. But Gulab Singh bided his time. He set out at sunset with his army of around 10,000 Sikh and Dogra troops towards Hazara, the revolting tribesmen fled to the mountains with their families and valuables. At midnight, Gulab Singh set his base camp in Hazara and looted almost the whole of the North West Frontier Province and set on fire all the houses. He made Kahuta his headquarters and hunted for Muslim Pashtun tribes. He offered one rupee for the head of every Yousafzai man brought to his feet. He had some of the women spared and kept as prisoners with the army, thousands of these female prisoners had to march on foot towards Jammu along with the army soldiers. When night-time had arrived, the army set up camps and many of the Muslim Yusufzai Pashtun women were reportedly gang raped by the Sikh and Dogra soldiers. Only a few hundred out of thousands of these women reached Jammu. Meanwhile others were kept for Raja Gulab Singh's harem and the rest were sold as slaves in Lahore and Jammu. It was reported that this expedition resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of Pashtun rebels and thousands of women were sold into slavery. In 1848-1849, the Second Anglo-Sikh War broke out. The East India Company won the war, thus annexing the entire Sikh Empire, including Kahuta. Kahuta was now under direct control of the British. However, much of Kahuta's policies were still controlled by the Jammu Dogras. The Punjab region became predominantly Muslim due to missionary Sufi saints whose dargahs dot the landscape of Punjab region. In 1947, partition broke out in South Asia. The predominantly Muslim population of Kahuta supported Muslim League and Pakistan Movement. Following the success of the Pakistan Movement which lead to the independence of Pakistan in 1947, Muslim refugees settled in the area. Many of the Sikhs and Hindus living in Kahuta also had to flee to India leaving all their houses and property behind. Kahuta was a small incorporated city until the 1970s when KRL was constructed by the Pakistan Army Corps of Engineers under Engineering officer Major-General Zahid Ali Akbar, Director of Project-706.[2] During the 1960s and 1970s, Kahuta was inhabited by retired officers of the Pakistan Armed Forces.[3]

In the 1970s, the Ministry of Defence was tasked by Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to search for a remote location for carrying out atomic and weapon-testing experiments for the integrated atomic bomb project in 1976.[2][4][3] The Uranium Coordination Board (UCB) headed by Ghulam Ishaq Khan financed the reconstruction of the site.[2] Major-General Zahid Ali Akbar and later completed the drawings, surveying and measured the area aerially.[2] Within the week, the whole site was acquired by the Ministry of Defence, and the army truckloads, heavy engineering vehicles arrived the next day to re-built the site.[5] All incoming materials and research equipment were labeled as common items and engineering tools to conceal the true nature of their purpose.[2] Scientists and engineers working and living in Kahuta were censored by the senior military officials.[5] Soon, the site was classified and abandoned for public with only few allowed to resides.[5] The Engineering Research Laboratories (now KRL) was established by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as a research government national facility under the Ministry of Defence.

Kahuta is situated in the Himalayan foothills in Rawalpindi District of Pakistan's Punjab Province, approximately 30 km southeast of Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. There are many picnic spots like Punjpeer Rocks in Narar (Narh),Ling Stream and Badshah Peak in Sore Valley, Kotli Sattian, Azad Pattan, Tlaitar and Beyore Salitha. The area is noted for its wildlife and hunting. Punjabi language ( with Pahari-Potwari dialect) is spoken in this region.