The Lalbagh Fort

The Capital city Dhaka predominantly was a city of the Mughals. In hundred years of their vigorous rule successive Governors and princely Viceroys who ruled the province, adorned it with many noble monuments in the shape of magnificent palaces, mosques, tombs, fortifications and Katras often surrounded with beautifully laid out gardens and pavilions. Among these, a few have survived the ravages of time, aggressive tropical climate of the land and vandal hands of man.

The finest specimen of this period is the Aurangabad Fort, commonly known as Lalbagh Fort, which indeed represents the unfulfilled dream of a Mughal Prince.

Mughal prince Muhammad Azam, third son of Aurangzeb started the work of the fort in 1678 during his vice-royalty in Bengal. He stayed in Bengal for 15 months. The fort remained incomplete when he was called away by his father Aurangzeb. Shaista Khan was the new subahdar of Dhaka in that time and he did not complete the fort. In 1684, the daughter of Shaista Khan named Iran Dukht Pari Bibi died there. After her death, he started to think the fort as unlucky, and left the structure incomplete. After Shaista Khan left Dhaka, it lost its popularity. The main cause was that the capital was moved from Dhaka to Murshidabad. After the end of the royal Mughal period, the fort became abandoned. In 1844, the area acquired its name as Lalbagh replacing Aurangabad, and the fort became Lalbagh Fort.

It occupies the south-western part of the old city, overlooking the Buriganga on whose northern bank it stands as a silent sentinel of the old city. Rectangular in plan, it encloses an area of 1082' by 800' and in addition to corners and a subsidiary small unpretentious gateway on north, it also contains within its fortified. Perimeter a number of splendid monuments, surrounded by attractive garden. These are a small 3-domed mosque, the mausoleum of Bibi Pari, the reputed daughter of Nawab Shaista Khan and the Hammam and Audience Hall of the Governor. The building in the middle, the tomb of Bibi Pari, is the most impressive of the surviving buildings of the fort. Eight rooms surround a central square room, containing the mortal remains of Bibi Pari, which is covered by a false dome, octagonal in shape, and wrapped by brass plate. The entire

inner wall of the central room was covered with white marble, while the four side central rooms had stone skirting up to a height of one meter. The wall in the four corner rooms was skirted with beautiful glazed floral tiles. The tiles have recently been restored; two of the original tiles have been retained. The Lalbagh Fort Mosque is a three-domed mosque with a water tank in front for ablution.

The southern fortification wall has a huge bastion in the southwestern corner. On the north of the south fortification wall were the utility buildings, stable, administration block, and its western part accommodated a beautiful roof-garden with arrangements for fountains and a water reservoir. The residential part was located on the east of the west fortification wall, mainly to the southwest of the mosque. The fortification wall on the south had five bastions at regular intervals two stories in height, and the western wall had two bastions; the biggest one is near the main southern gate. The bastions had an underground tunnel. The central area of the fort is occupied by three buildings - the Diwan-i- Aam and the hammam on its east, the Mosque on the west and the Tomb of Pari Bibi in between the two - in one line, but not at an equal distance. A water channel with fountains at regular intervals connects the three buildings from east to west and north to south.

The main purpose of this fort was to provide a defensive enclosure of the palatial edifices of the interior and as such was a type of palace-fortress rather than a seize-fort.

It is the most important historical tourist point in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh. A lot of local and foreign people visit and enjoy the beauty of this fort regularly.