Chattroh

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Chattroh
Country	Pakistan
Language	Pahari

Chattroh is a small village in the Dadyal tehsil (sub-division) of Mirpur District, Azad Kashmir, lying on the banks of the River Jhelum. Like much of Mirpur, Chattroh has deep connections with the UK. Many people originally from Chattroh have settled in the urban centres such as Birmingham and Manchester. The Cheetham Hill district of Manchester is often referred to as New Chattroh (by Mirpuris), reflecting the fact that a large number of people from Chattroh live there. The link with the UK is immediately obvious on entering Chattroh, where one is greeted by palatial, hacienda-style residences, eerily empty, which have been built with remitted pounds. In this regard, Chattroh is no different from the rest of Mirpur, where links with the UK have precipitated various property booms since the 1960s.

When the Mangla Dam was created in the 1960s, Chattroh escaped relatively unscathed, with only land on the periphery affected. However, plans to raise the Mangla reservoir further, if implemented, are certain to affect properties in Chattroh. These plans, as well as the general property boom, have contributed to demand for habitable land (as in much of Mirpur). This in turn has encouraged many unscrupulous people to take advantage of the archaic land laws and registers to make unmeritorious claims to premium land.

Chattroh also has a long history of involvement in politics. Mirpur's representative to the assembly of Maharaja Hari Singh, the last Dogra ruler of Kashmir, was from Chattroh. In recent years, two MPs for the Dadyal constituency of the state government have hailed from Chattroh, both of whom also served as State Ministers