Malakand Pass

The Malakand Pass (درہ ملاکنډ; ) is a mountain pass in the Malakand District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa that connects Peshawar with the Chitral District.

The pass road begins at Dargai, which is 150 km the north-west from Islamabad. It then slopes upward towards the tunnel to reach the areas of Swat and Dir. From the top of the pass, Swat Canal descending through the valley can be observed. The Canal was built by the Britishers in the colonial era to channel water from the Swat River through Malakand Pass to the plain areas around Mardan.

The Pass is a wide open road and is well-structured but sometimes it may get extensively trafficked.

At the top end, it is guarded by the Malakand Fort from which it descends through the bazaar of Batkhela, with a Hindu Shahi fort perched above it. After this, it continues to reach the headworks of the Swat Canal to the Swat River. At the bottom end, it meets the plain areas of Mardan and the Charsadda District.

History
It came into prominence in 1895 during the Chitral Expedition, when Pashtuns opposed a stout resistance to Sir Robert Low’s advance over the Malakand Pass in 1895 to the relief of Chitral. During the frontier risings of 1897, the Swatis made a determined attack on the Malakand, where 700 were killed, and on the adjacent post of Chakdara, where 2000 were killed. This was the origin of the Malakand Expedition of the same year.