Phillaur Fort

Phillaur Fort, officially the Maharaja Ranjit Singh Fort, stands on the Grand Trunk Road at Phillaur in Punjab. An imperial sarai was built here under Shah Jahan, and in 1809 Maharaja Ranjit Singh rebuilt it as a fort, in answer to the British fort at nearby Ludhiana. Dewan Mohkam Chand designed it with help from Ranjit Singh's French and Italian generals. After the Sikh defeat at Aliwal in 1846 the British took it over as an artillery depot, and from 1891 it housed what became India's oldest police training academy.

The red-brick fort has a European character: a moat, outer walls that slope inward to deflect cannon fire, bastions at the four corners and along the ramparts, and three-storey watchtowers over the Delhi Gate to the east and the Lahori Gate to the west. Inside are the Police Training College, the director's residence, the Finger Print Bureau and the shrine of Pir Baba Abdullah Shah Ji. As it is a working police academy, public access has been a matter of debate.