The Lone Fort in Navi Mumbai: Belapur Fort/ Shehbaz Killa

Finally, after planning for months of visiting this place; in-spite of being the closest fort to my home; the visit materialized one rainy September weekend.

The major reason for wanting to go to this place was because it was built by the Siddi's, some distant relative. So I set out with my cousin on a drive to the fort.






The fort lies at Palm Beach Marg, at Ulwe junction.

I could only find the watch tower of the fort. The fort actually lies somewhere on the hill-lock behind it. The watch tower itself was covered in such dense vegetation; the only reason I could find it because I had seen it several times from the road. Anyways, atleast we could explore the watch tower.





The main fort that lies on the hill-lock was next to impossible to search. Thanks to CIDCO/ NMMC, the hill-lock where the fort is situated is majorly covered with housing projects; I doubt if the fort exists now and even if does there is no idea of the condition. The huge amount of construction work coupled with dense vegetation made it sure that I couldn't find the remains of the fort and had to be contended with just the watch tower.



The watch tower looks safe as of now from the construction around since it has been attached to a public garden maintained by the NMMC. It was camouflaged with dense vegetation thanks to the monsoon season.




Moving closer to it, we could see some steps. Although it was covered in vegetation still the curiosity to explore led me into going there.






Entrance of the watch tower:




Some random clicks around the tower:












Since, we did not have a proper camera and only a cellphone one, the inside of the tower could not be captured. Inside there is a 2-3 storeys structure but we couldn't find any steps to go upstairs, probably must have collapsed.




That was pretty much it of the Belapur Fort Watch Tower. Probably need to search for the fort in some other season when there isn't so much vegetation.