Chakesar

Chakesar is a town and tehsil of the Shangla District in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It is situated about 6 km in the north-west on the right bank of the Indus River. Chakesar was given the status of Tehsil in 2017. The inhabitants live primarily on agricultural products.

Geography
Chakesar is on a formation of a river delta in a valley of 5 km wide by 11 km long at the elevation of 3722 feet above sea level. The village is on suture zone / collision zone between the Indian continent and Eurasian continent. This suture zone is world-famous for hosting precious stone deposits of emeralds, rubies etc. The collision was preceded by a magmatic event known as the Kohistan Magmatic Arc some 30 million years ago. It is the least explored magmatic arc in the world. Most of the world magmatic arcs are the sources of gold and copper deposits, e.g. Pan African Nubian Shield.

Topography
Chakesar is a tehsil in district Shangla, located between 34° 47′ 8′′ N and 72° 46′ 11′′ E, with an altitude of 3722 feet. Tehsil Chakesar is enclosed to the north-west by Alpuri, to the south by tehsil Martung, to the north-west by tehsil Puran, and to the east by tehsil Besham. Chakesar valley is in the Sino Japanese region and reaches to the basin of the Saharo Sindian region.

Surrounding Chakesar are many mountains and valley. The weather in the region is moderate in summer and cold in winter. The mercury goes a few degrees below the freezing point in December, January and February. People mainly burn wood and LPG for their household cooking and warming their houses. Rapid deforestation is thus a problem of this area right now and will be a great issue in the near future.

Historical importance
Historically, the place has been home to many Buddhist hermits, as well as a small Hindu community. Alexander the Great supposedly fought a battle against the locals there in 326 BC, at the historical mount Pir Sar (see Aornos).

Etymology of name
The name Chakesar evolved from the word Char Hesar that means "four fortresses". Historically this village was the center of the district Shangla and thus was important for both the inhabitants and the invaders. In order to protect this village from invaders the local inhabitants set up four fortresses around this village and this was thus called Char Hesar which later evolved into Chakesar.

Tribes
The inhabitants of the area belong to Azi Khel, the major Pashtun tribe of Yousafzai tribe. Tribes and sects: Geographically the village is divided into four subunits traditionally called hujras and the sects residing therein are Khan Khel, Malak Khel, Begum Khel, Ghowara Khel, Imnakhel, Baba khel, Musakhel, Kakakhel, Gujjars and Shahs (میاں).

A Hindu community consisting of seven to eight families is also the part of the village.

Locally, these people are called Pukhtana which means the leaders in a sense. Pashto, or Pukhto is language of the Pashtuns and also is a code of conduct which is known with same name as Pukhto or sometimes Pukhtunwali. The leading and dominant people in this area and other nearby villages like Puran, Martung etc. were historically responsible for maintaining law and order in the area and hence were called Pukhtana which literally means Pashtoons and the people responsible for implementing the code of conduct "Pukhto". The descendants of these ancient lords are called Pukhtana. Each sub-tribe or clan in these people carries whole or part of the name of their great-grandfather normally followed by Khel which means tribe. About 5,000 out of total population of 75,000 people are "Pukhtana" in Chakesar.

Villages and settlements
Tehsil Chakesar comprised four Union councils viz. Chakesar, Opal, Bunerwal and Sarkool.

UC Chakesar
Khadang Ranzra
 * Ghari Hujra
 * Kamar Hujra
 * Manz Hujra
 * Kuza Hujra

Opal

 * Opal
 * Karora
 * Tachat
 * Ponial
 * Danakol
 * Darkaly
 * Kandaw
 * Chedam
 * Seero
 * Bashir Abad
 * Shalmanoo

Buner waal

 * Katkor
 * Shawawoo
 * Langbar
 * Dandai
 * Said Abad
 * Shumbar
 * Jawzanoo

Sarkool

 * Gunanger
 * Maseer
 * Mareer
 * Goshoo

Water bodies
Chakesar is rich in water and has many springs and small rivers (called Khowar in the local language) which have plenty of water throughout the year. People harvest wheat, maize and rice as their major crops. Fruits and vegetables are grown too. Agriculture depends mainly upon rains and luckily Chakesar gets good annual precipitation including a rich monsoon season in July and August.

However, in the past few years climatic changes have badly affected Chakesar valley.

Chakesar was connected to the national grid and digital telephone network in late 1990s.

Educational institutions
Both public and private educational institutions are participating in the improvement of Chakesar. Some of them are as follows.

Public schools

 * Shaheed Nawab Ali Centennial Model high school Chakesar, SNCMHS
 * Govt High School Shawawoo, Chakesar
 * Govt High School Danakool Chakesar
 * Govt High School Karora, Chakesar
 * Govt High School opal, Chakesar
 * Govt High School Gulibat, Chakesar
 * Govt High School Karora, Chakesar
 * Govt Middle School Sundia Chakesar
 * Govt Middle School Said Abad Chakesar
 * Govt Middle School Khadang Chakesar
 * Govt Middle School Dawoot Chakesar
 * Govt Middle School Barpaw (Samseer) Chakesar
 * Govt Middle School Gunager Chakesar, GHS, DSS
 * Govt Middle School Ponyal, Chakesar
 * Govt Girls Higher Secondary School, Chakesar
 * Govt English medium Primary school kuzpaw Chakesar
 * Govt Primary school Barpaw Chakesar
 * Govt Primary school Shawawoo, Chakesar

Private schools

 * Chakesar Public High School and College, Chakesar
 * Chakesar Model School, Chakesar
 * Hira Model School, Chakesar
 * Himalayan Model High School

Colleges

 * Govt Degree College, Chakesar
 * Madaris

Animal Fauna
In recent research article, a new distribution record for  Idricerus decrepitus  from Chakesar Shangla has been reported

Birds
The avian fauna of Chakesar Valley, Shangla, was explored from March 2019 to March 2022. The result yielded a total of 38 bird species belonging to 20 families under the orders Passeriformes, Columbiformes, Coraciiformes, and Accipitriformes. Order Passeriformes, representing 34 species in 17 families, are Acridotheres tristis (L), A. fuscus (Wagler), Sturnia pagodarum (Gmelin), Passer domesticus, P. montanus (L), Pycnonotus leucogenys (L), P. cafer (Grey), and Hypsipetes leucocephalus (Gmelin). Phylloscopus xanthoschist (Grey & Grey), Phylloscopus sp., Terpsiphone paradisi (L.), Motacilla cinerea (Tunstall), M. alba (L.), Oriolus kundoo (Sykes), Emberiza lathami (Grey),Phoenicurus fuliginous (Vigors), P. leucocephalus (Vigors), Copsychus saularis (L.), Eumyias thalassinus (Swainson), Saxicola maurus (Pallas), Saxicola caprata (Linnaeus), Hirundo rustica (L.), Cecropis daurica (Laxmann), Hirundo smithii (Leach), Dicrurus macrocercus (Vieillot), Corvus splendens (Vieillot), C. macrorhynchos (Wagler), Dendrocitta vagabunda (Latham), Parus cinereus (Vieillot), Lanius schach (L.), Chloris spinoides (Vigors), Prinia crinigera (Hodgson), and Lonchura punctulate (L.) Two species, Halcyon smyrnensis (L.) and Alcedo atthis (L.), represented the order Coraciiformes, while Spilopelia senegalensis (L.) and Gyps himalayensis (Hume) represented the orders Columbiformes and Accipitriformes, respectively. Emberiza lathami was rarely sighted. All reported species are new for the area.

This study was carried out by Waqas Ahmad Hujra; Mphil Zoology