Roorkee

Roorkee (Rūṛkī) is a city and a municipal corporation in the Haridwar district of the state of Uttarakhand, India. It is 31 km (19 mi) from Haridwar city, the district headquarter. It is spread over a flat terrain under Sivalik Hills of Himalayas. The city is developed on the banks of Ganges Canal, its dominant feature, which flows from north–south through middle of the city. Roorkee is home to Asia's first engineering college Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, formerly known as Thomson College of Civil Engineering. Roorkee is also known for the Roorkee Cantonment, one of the country's oldest military establishments and the headquarters of Bengal Engineer Group since 1853.[2] A freight train ran in between Roorkee and Piran Kaliyar on 22 December 1851, this was two years before first passenger trains were started between Bombay and Thana in 1853 and 14 years after first freight trains ran in Chennai in 1837.[3] Roorkee is listed in the Ain-i-Akbari as a pargana under the sarkar of Saharanpur, producing a revenue of 12,234 dams for the imperial treasury and supplying a force of 1200 infantry and 125 cavalry.[4] After that it was a part of Landhaura Princely State of Panwar Gurjar's till 1824 when the Britishers occupied it by defeating the First Freedom Fighter Vijay Singh.[5]