Turtuk

The earliest known tribe which inhabited Turtuk were a Dardic tribe, locally known as the Brogpas,[13] who are believed to have migrated from Chilas, a place now in Pakistan. They lived in Turtuk from an unknown time till, mostly probably, the 13th century AD. At some point around the 13th century AD, two warriors named Chuli and Yangdrung, came to Turtuk. They killed the king and eventually mostly of the locals fled Turtuk along the stream and across the mountain, to the villages now called Hanu, Dah and Domkhar. Right now, majority of the population in Turtuk are the direct descendants of Chuli and Yangdrung. As time passed on, people from outside came to Turtuk in search of work, bringing in more diversity. Turtuk is believed to have remained an independent principality till the conquest of Baltistan by the Sikh Empire.[14]

The people of Turtuk were followers of the Bon religion before Islam. Bon rituals can be seen both in the tradition as well as the architecture. Islam came to Turtuk due to the famous Persian Sufi poet and preacher, Syed Ali Shah Hamdani. People in Turtuk, like in other places in Baltistan, practice the Sufi sect Sufis Noorbakshia, named after a disciple of Shah Hamdani, Syed Mohammad Noorbaksh. But by the nineteenth century, dominant sects from outside, such as Shia, Hanafi and later Wahabi started converting the Sufi Noorbakshia of Baltistan, and the Noorbakshia of Turtuk too. More recently, the Hanafis of Turtuk have also been converted to the more extreme subsets of Sunni. Right now, only half of the population practices Noorbakshias while the rest practice either Sunni sect or Wahhabi sect.[14]

The Chorbat-Khaplu region of Baltistan, including Turtuk, was ruled by the Turkistani Yabgo dynasty for one thousand years. Their rule started when Beg Manthal came to the region from Yarkand in the 9th century and conquered Khaplu.[12][15] The region was dominated by Buddhism until the arrival of Islamic scholar and poet Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani in the 13th century.[16]

The thousand-year Yabgo rule continued until 1834, when Raja Gulab Singh of Jammu, a vassal of the Sikh Empire, conquered the region.[3][17] After losing kingship, Yabgo Abdullah Khan renamed the family Kacho (Balti for "light weight"), even though the family continued to be a wealthy, powerful family.[12]

After the First Anglo-Sikh War, the British established the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir under Gulab Singh. Gulab Singh's Dogra dynasty ruled the region until 1947 under the suzerainty of British Raj.

War Memorial in Turtuk

During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948, the Gilgit Scouts based in Gilgit overthrew the Dogra administration and subsequently invaded the Baltistan region. At the end of that war, Turtuk came under the control of Pakistan along with most of Baltistan.[12][15]

During the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, this area was the site of the Battle of Turtuk. India's Ladakh Scouts and Nubra Guards, under the command of Brigadier Udai Singh, entered the village after Pakistani forces had retreated a day earlier.[18] Udai Singh and his second-in-command Major Chewang Rinchen were both honoured with a Maha Vir Chakra for their gallantry and a street is named after Major Rinchen in Leh.[19]

In 1999, the two countries once again had a major conflict around this area during the Kargil War. There are memorials built in memory of soldiers on Main Road going towards the zero point of the India–Pakistan Line of Control.

The local people are unsure of their loyalties because they have lived under both Pakistani and Indian control, and some of them served in the Pakistan Army before India's take-over. Many of them also have relatives living across the Line of Control. During the Kargil infiltration by Pakistan, some of the local people were suspected to have assisted the infiltrators.[20][21]

In August 2010, the village of Turtuk was impacted by floods which occurred throughout the entire region of Ladakh.