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Derawar Fort is a fortress in Ahmadpur East Tehsil, Punjab, Pakistan. Approximately 20 km south of the city of Ahmedpur East, the forty bastions of Derawar are visible for many miles in the Cholistan Desert. The walls have a perimeter of 1500 metres and stand up to thirty metres high.

Derawar fort was first built in the 9th century AD by Rai Jajja bhati, a Hindu Rajput ruler of the Bhati clan, as a tribute to Rawal Deoraj Bhati, the king of Jaisalmer and Bahawalpur. The region was part of Emirate of Multan ruled by the Arabs. The fort was initially known as Dera Rawal, and later referred to as Dera Rawar, which with the passage of time came to be pronounced Derawar, its present name.

In 711 CE, the fort was captured by the Arab Umayyad commander Muhammad ibn Qasim. It was thereafter ruled by the Emirate of Multan which was captured by Mahmud Ghaznavi in 1008 during his conquest of the Punjab. The fort was then captured by the Ghurids under Muhammad Ghori and it became part of the Delhi Sultanate. The fort then came under the control of the Mughals from the early 16th century to the late 18th century. In the 18th century, the fort was taken over by Muslim Nawabs of Bahawalpur from the Shahotra tribe. It was later rebuilt in its current form in 1732 by the Abbasi ruler Nawab Sadeq Muhammad, but in 1747 the fort slipped from their hands owing to Bahawal Khan's preoccupations at Shikarpur. Nawab Mubarak Khan took the stronghold back in 1804. 1,000 year-old catapult shells were found in the debris near a decaying wall in the fort.

Nawab Sadeq Muhammad Khan Abbasi V, the 12th and last ruler of Bahawalpur state, was born in the fort in 1904.

A watchman and tour guide at the fort, says even the architecture of the fort's dungeons, which could once be accessed through a stairway made of tunneled pathways, has a charm of its own. He also speaks of a long underground railway tunnel that connected the Sadiq Ghar Palace to the fort.

The Derawar fort was also connected to other forts in Cholistan through a network of underground tunnels. On the ground floor, there were offices, a small prison, a gallows, a water pond and residential rooms.

I visited this place recently after ten years and I was shocked to see its dilapidated condition. It had many rooms that are no longer there, says a visitor from Ahmedpur tehsil. We used to be able to climb down to the underground section by a stairway, but today that is not possible as the tunneled pathways are blocked.

Tragically, tourists are also to blame, as they carelessly walk on various structures, eat at the site and throw trash inside the fort. 12 years ago, the fort was in a considerably good condition. We walked in the tunnels for a mile and could see a network of tunnels leading to different rooms. But the stairs leading to the top of bastions have now collapsed. The majority of the bastions have developed cracks, with bricks from some falling off.

Owing to its run-down condition, the entire fort may soon collapse.

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