Welcome Rohri City! History

Rohri, ( روھڙي ) or Lohri, 27° 41’ North Latitude, 68° 56’ East Longitude, headquarter of the taluka (tehsile) of that name, is a Municipal Town.

The town is situated on the left bank of the river Indus (Sanskrit, Sindhu; Greek, Sinthes; Latin Sindus [from Bukkur in Sukkur to the sea the river is known familiarly among the people of the province as the Darya]), on a rocky eminence of limestone interspersed with flints, which is terminated abruptly on the western side of a precipice 12 meters high rising from the bank of the river, which during the inundation attains a height of about 05 meters above its lowest level. On the southern side the aspect of the whole place has been changed by the operations of the Railway Company, which has cleared a wide space fir its yards by blasting the hills and filling up the hallows obtaining at the same time immense quantities of good stone.

The interest of town lies mainly in its history which begins from the stone age, for it is evident, from the quantity of flint cores and flakes found in the river bed at Rohri and on the surrounding hills (proceeding of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 1975, page 134) by Lieutenant Twemlow, R.E., and afterwards by Mr. John Tate, that Neolithic man has, at one time, a flourishing settlement at this place. Dr. Blanford pronounced these cores to be more carefully formed than any previously found in India and so far superior to all ordinary forms of the same other places. There is a wide gap between Neolithic man and the Arab invasion of Sindh, at the time of which there was almost certainly no town on the present site which was not then on the course and made a passage for itself through the hills between the present Rohri and Sukkur, the two towns probably grew simultaneously on its left and right banks respectively under the protection of the fortress which soon occupied Bukkur. From a very early period Rohri acquired a sacred character, which was enhanced when the Saiyids who has settled in Bukkur were removed by Shahbeg Arghun and compensated with land and privilege at Rohri. Its history as a scared place can be gathered from a description of the principle shrines and relics.

There are three prominent hills (nummulitic limestone, low range on the northern extremity, run southwards from that point to Khairpur District boundary), namely “Kalka” hill at Arore, “Laheri” hill at Rohri and “Shadi Shaheed” hill at Kandhra.

In 1975-6, the Cambridge Archaeological Expedition made a preliminary survey of the Paleolithic sites in the Rohri Hills. According to their findings, the Rohri Hills were a source of chart for the manufacture of the parallel-sided blades used by the Harappan culture of 2300-1750 BC. The most clearly differentiated Paleolithic site in the Rohri Hills was at their southern end, near the village of Chancha Baloch and only four kilometers from the pre-Harappan settlement of Kot Diji. Spread over an area of about 5,000 square meters, on a largely sand- free area between the dunes, are found Middle and Upper Paleolithic artifacts and factory debris . An extensive series of working floors were also found close to a hamlet known as Nawab Punjabi. The discovery of factory sites representing all phases of the Stone Age in the lower Indus Valley has added more depth to our understanding of civilization in prehistoric Sindh.

Rohri was one of the place most affected by the departure of the caste Hindu in 1947.