Ghanta Ghar, the clock tower on Chosul Road in central Sukkur, is the city's most recognisable colonial-era landmark. Its formal name is the Sunderdas Dayomal Tower, and it was built in 1937 as a memorial paid for by a local merchant family. The tower stands 90 feet tall on an octagonal plan, and it has had no working clocks since all four were stolen in 1994.
This page sets out what the record shows: who paid for the tower, the two dates carved on its plaque, what happened to the clocks, and what a visit looks like today. Where a claim circulates without a source that can be checked, it is left out rather than repeated.
 |
| Ghanta Ghar, Sukkur: the Sunderdas Dayomal Tower on Chosul Road. |
Ghanta Ghar at a Glance
Two things are usually confused about the tower: its name and its condition. The common name is a description, not a dedication, and the clock faces that give the building its purpose are gone. The essentials are these.
| Detail | What the record shows |
|---|---|
| Formal name | Sunderdas Dayomal Tower |
| Built | 1937; foundation stone 7 January, opening 30 October |
| Height | 90 feet (about 27 metres) |
| Plan | Octagonal, with rooms in the base; local accounts give the base as about 35 feet across |
| Location | Chosul Road, opposite Victoria Market, below the ridge of the Minaret of Mir Masum Shah |
| Paid for by | Seth Wadho Mal Nebhau Mal Manjhari, in memory of his brothers Seth Sunderdas and Seth Dayomal |
| Executing body | Sunder Shewak Sabha, a Sukkur social welfare organisation |
| Cost | 10,000 rupees |
| Clocks | Four; stolen in 1994; none working today |
| Heritage status | Recorded by the Endowment Fund Trust for Preservation of Heritage of Sindh (site record 14) |
Where the Tower Stands
The Ghanta Ghar occupies one of the few open corners of old Sukkur. It faces Victoria Market across Chosul Road, with the limestone ridge of the Minaret of Mir Masum Shah rising immediately behind it. That placement was deliberate: the tower stood where traffic from the surrounding quarters entered the commercial centre, so it worked as a gateway as much as a clock.
In plan it is octagonal, with functional rooms built into the lower tier and the clock stage at the top. The masonry is the dressed stone and brick typical of Upper Sindh's colonial public buildings, materials chosen to survive a climate of extreme summer heat. Even without its clocks, the silhouette is what people navigate by: ask for Ghanta Ghar in Sukkur and no one needs a street number.
 |
| The tower in 1940, three years after it opened, while the clocks were still in place. |
Who Paid for It, and Whom It Commemorates
The tower was the gift of Seth Wadho Mal Nebhau Mal Manjhari, a merchant of the Hindu trading community that dominated Sukkur's commerce in the early twentieth century. His name appears in different transliterations across the records, including Seth Vadhumal Nebhaumal. The dedication was personal: he built the tower in memory of his brothers, Seth Sunderdas and Seth Dayomal, and their names became the building's formal title. Variant spellings in the sources include Deo Mal and Deyomal for the second brother.
Execution was entrusted to the Sunder Shewak Sabha, a Sukkur social welfare body, which appears in some records as the Sunder Shewal Sabha. The cost was 10,000 rupees, a substantial civic donation at the time. Contemporary accounts also link the project to the silver jubilee of King George V. That jubilee had been celebrated in 1935, and the king died in January 1936, so the tower marked the jubilee after both the event and the monarch had passed.
 |
| Portrait captioned Seth Deyomal Nebhau Mal, one of the two brothers the tower commemorates. |
The Two Dates on the Plaque
A plaque on the tower records the whole sequence, and it is the closest thing to a primary document on the building. It is also the reason this page can give exact dates instead of the usual "1930s".
7 January 1937: the foundation stone
The foundation stone was laid by D.B. Issarsing Tiloksing, President of the Sukkur Municipality, whose name is also written Issardas Tiloksingh. He was a lawyer by training and is described in local accounts as having served as a public prosecutor in Jacobabad before holding the municipal presidency.
 |
| Diwan Bahadur Issardas Tiloksingh, President of Sukkur Municipality, who laid the foundation stone. |
30 October 1937: the opening
The opening ceremony was performed by U.M. Mirchandani, ICS, the Collector of Sukkur, less than ten months after the foundation stone was laid. That interval explains why the tower is both "built in 1937" and "opened in 1937": the entire structure, from stone to clock stage, belongs to a single year.
 |
| Diwan Udharam Mirchandani, Collector of Sukkur, who performed the opening on 30 October 1937. |
 |
| The plaque recording the foundation stone of 7 January 1937 and the opening on 30 October 1937. |
The older photograph further up this page is often captioned 1940, which is the date of the photograph, not of the tower. The building was already three years old when it was taken.
What Happened to the Clocks
The tower was designed around four large clock faces, one to each side of the octagon, with chiming mechanisms that once carried across the surrounding streets. All four clocks were stolen in 1994. A police case was registered at the time, but the clocks were never recovered, and the tower has been silent since.
That loss is why descriptions of the Ghanta Ghar have changed. Before 1994 it was the city's timekeeper; now it is an architectural landmark, valued for its outline, its stonework and its place in the street rather than for what it does. Local heritage bodies and residents have repeatedly asked for the clocks to be restored, and the Endowment Fund Trust for Preservation of Heritage of Sindh lists the building among its recorded sites.
Shops, Fences and the Changing Street
The tower's problems were not only mechanical. In the early 1950s shops were built directly against its base, a common pattern in Pakistan's old commercial centres, and for decades the lower tier was buried in shopfronts. The encroachments were cleared around 2004, the stonework was repaired, and an iron fence was put around the tower to keep the space open.
What remains is a building that has been through three phases: a functioning civic clock in the colonial period, a half-hidden commercial stump after Partition, and a cleared, fenced heritage object today. The fence is the reason the octagonal base can now be seen at all.
Why the Tower Still Matters
Ghanta Ghar is one of the clearest surviving statements of pre-Partition Sukkur's civic culture, when merchant families paid for public buildings rather than merely donating to them. The tower is a memorial, a clock, a market gateway and a piece of municipal infrastructure in one structure, which is why it outlived both the donors and the empire that granted the honour it commemorates.
For visitors it also functions as a fixed point in a city that is hard to navigate on foot. The tower, the market and the minaret above it form a compact heritage cluster: three different centuries of building within a few hundred metres. The wider story of that crossing is covered in the guide to the ancient Indus crossroads of Rohri, Bukkur and Sukkur.
Visiting Ghanta Ghar
The tower stands in the open street, so there is no ticket and no opening time: you can walk up to the fence at any hour. What you see is the exterior, since the clock stage is closed and empty. The best months are October to March, when daytime temperatures are comfortable. From May to July the city regularly exceeds 45 degrees Celsius, and the surrounding bazaars hold the heat.
Two practical notes. First, this is a working commercial street, so photograph from the pavement rather than the roadway. Second, the tower is best used as the start of a walk rather than a destination on its own: Victoria Market and the surrounding bazaars sit immediately around it, and the Minaret of Mir Masum Shah rises directly behind, with its own stair and view over the Indus. For the colonial civic context, see the history of the Commissioner's House in Sukkur and of Sukkur's municipal corporation.
If you are coming from Rohri, the tower is a short ride across the Indus; the Sukkur railway crossing and the Sukkur Barrage are both within reach on the same trip. The banking history of the city, including the firms that financed this kind of civic building, is covered in the banks of Sukkur.
Sources and Further Reading
- Endowment Fund Trust for Preservation of Heritage of Sindh: Ganta Ghar Clock Tower, Sukkur, site record 14, for the 1937 date, the donors, the cost and the height.
- Endowment Fund Trust: Ghanta Ghar, Sukkur district record, for the 1950s shops, the clearance around 2004, the iron fence and the loss of the clocks.
- Clock Tower, Sukkur, for the 90-foot height, the 1937 inauguration and the 1994 theft, used here as a pointer to the underlying records.
- The Express Tribune, "At 79 years, Sukkur's Ghanta Ghar begs for govt attention", 7 January 2016, for the police case and the failure to recover the clocks.
- The plaque photograph on this page, which records the foundation stone of 7 January 1937 and the opening of 30 October 1937.
- Sukkur.net: Ghanta Ghar, the Sunderdas Dayomal Tower, for the plaque transcription and the officers named on it.
This article was reviewed on 2 November 2026 against the sources listed above. Dates and names that could not be checked against a record are marked as variants rather than repeated as certainties.
Frequently Asked Questions
When was Ghanta Ghar Sukkur built?
The foundation stone was laid on 7 January 1937 and the tower was opened on 30 October 1937, so the whole building belongs to a single year. The date 1940 sometimes attached to photographs is the date of the photograph, not of the tower.
Who built Ghanta Ghar and why?
Seth Wadho Mal Nebhau Mal Manjhari, a Sukkur merchant, paid for the tower at a cost of 10,000 rupees in memory of his brothers, Seth Sunderdas and Seth Dayomal. The work was carried out by the Sunder Shewak Sabha, and the building took their names as its formal title.
Is the Ghanta Ghar the same building as the Sunderdas Dayomal Tower?
Yes. Sunderdas Dayomal Tower is the formal name, taken from the brothers the building commemorates. Ghanta Ghar is the everyday name, from the Hindi and Urdu words for a bell or hour and a house, meaning clock tower.
How tall is the Ghanta Ghar and what shape is it?
The tower is 90 feet high, roughly 27 metres, and octagonal in plan. It has functional rooms in the lower tier and the clock stage at the top. Local accounts give the base as about 35 feet across.
What happened to the clocks on Sukkur's clock tower?
All four clocks were stolen in 1994. A police case was registered but the clocks were not recovered, so the tower has no working timepiece. The clock faces and mechanism have been empty since then.
Do I need a ticket to visit the Ghanta Ghar?
No. The tower stands in the open street opposite Victoria Market on Chosul Road, so there is no ticket and no opening hours. Visitors see the exterior; the clock stage is closed and empty.
Why is the tower important to Sukkur?
It is one of the best surviving examples of pre-Partition civic philanthropy in Upper Sindh, paid for by a merchant family and run by a local welfare body. It also remains the practical centre of the old commercial quarter, next to Victoria Market and below the Minaret of Mir Masum Shah.
Conclusion
The Ghanta Ghar is a memorial first and a clock tower second: built in 1937 for two brothers, opened the same year, and silenced in 1994. Its plaque gives the dates, its octagon gives the shape, and its empty clock stage explains why the building is described today as a tower rather than a timekeeper.
Walking from Victoria Market past the fence and looking up at the ridge behind it shows three centuries of Sukkur in one view. That is the reason to stop, and the reason the building is still worth arguing about.
Post: Sayed Sajjad Hussain Musavi - Rohri.net
#GhantaGharSukkur #SunderdasDayomalTower #SukkurHistory #SindhHeritage #PakistanLandmarks #ColonialArchitecture
No comments:
Post a Comment