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The Rohri Civil Court situated on the hill top near the old national highway, is a picturesque colonial edifice with foundations on an imposing curvy hill. To its front lies the old national Highway while peeping through its rear windows overlooking the mighty river Indus dotted with beautiful bridges and the barrage and the town of Sukkur across it paints singularly an amazing picture.

The building is a mixed masonry work of baked as well as sun dried bricks. Most of the parts including the stairs rising up from town's roundabout have been destroyed. The mishap of fire that broke out in the record room followed by some explosions, in 2005 destroyed yet an other portion of the building. The incident caused immense loss of a valuable archival record dating back to mid 19th century.

The Civil Court building which needs to be listed as a protected heritage is witness to a large number of litigations of historical significance during the pre or the post-independence period. It is claimed that many cases pertaining to Hur Movement of 1920s and the 1930s were also contested in this building.

One such case involving Sooreh Badhshah Pir Sibghatullah Sani was also fought in the court in which the Hur Movement leader was represented by Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. But unfortunately, the case file couldn't be traced due to improper upkeep of the record. A staffer of the court claimed that the said case file was shifted to Karachi on the orders of the Chief Justice of Sindh High Court.

The Court staff has recently discovered some human skeletons excavated during torrential rains of 2010. Considering this fact in mind, one may claimthat the Civil Court building was established on an ancient graveyard on the hilltop. It is important to mention here that most of the ancient graveyard of Sukkur and Rohri town are located on hilltops, which were mainly established there to avoid ravages of river Indus.

(Documented on June 2, 2013)

[Source: Sukkur: Nostalgia of things past by Momin Bullo | Coordinates: EFT]

Open in Google Map: 27.6900282,68.8859712

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