The 2008 Murshibad beheading refers to the beheading of Shailendra Prasad, a Hindu labourer from Bihar for marrying Munira Bibi a Muslim girl from West Bengal, on the orders of a shalishi court in Murshidabad on 14th July, 2008.^[1][2][3][4] The incident created a public outrage even though sections of the mainstream media blacked out the incident as a part of their responsible journalism. Munira Bibi, the widow of the victim eventually regretted her ill-fated visit to her parental home where she lost her husband.^[5]

Background[link]

Shailendra Prasad, a native of Bihar worked as a construction labourer in Mumbai, where Munira worked as a maid servant. They fell in love and married in 2006. Munira came from a orthodox village, where a shalishi court had fined her father Ansari Sheikh a sum of two hundred rupees for sending his daughter to work in Mumbai.^[1]

Trial and execution[link]

The couple visited Lakshmanpur again in July, 2008, this time with their 10-month old son. As in the previous occasion, this time too Shailendra had to assume the identity of Munna Sheikh to escape the wrath of the orthodox villagers. Shailendra's father-in-law Ansari Sheikh, however, noticed that he did not offer his Friday prayers, nor responded spontaneously to greetings.^[3] On 14th July, Ansari Sheikh overheard a muttering from Shailendra during a religious ritual, that was a dead giveaway of his religion and intimated the village elders about his suspicion in the afternoon. A shalishi court was convened in the grounds of the village primary school that evening by the village elders. At the court, Shailendra was forcibly disrobed to check his religious identity and when he was found uncircumcised he was beaten up severely. Twenty two political and religious leaders of the shalishi court along with Munira's father Ansari Sheikh pronounced Shailendra guilty of marrying a Muslim girl and awarded him the death sentence. His hands and feet were first tied up. He was gagged and taken to a nearby jute field where his throat was slit by four executioners.

As Shailendra Prasad went missing from the night of 14th July, his wife Munira Bibi believed that he had fled to Mumbai. Her father had kept everything from her mother and brother. On 27th July, when Munira came to know of her husband's fate from other villagers she accompanied her mother and her brother to the Berhampore police station to lodge the formal complaint. The police had already discovered the beheaded body of an unidentified man inside a gunny bag lying the jute fields ten days ago on 17th July. On 28th July, the police raided the village and arrested three persons who presided over the shalishi. The rest of the villagers who took part in the shalishi and Shailendra's father-in-law Ansari Sheikh fled the village. On 1st August, a large police force led by the additional superintendent of police Debashis Bej raided the village of Lakshmanpur and detained 26 villagers for interrogation.

Home Secretary Ashok Mohan Chakrabarti promised to take strictest action against the culprits.

Controversy[link]

West Bengal Land Reforms Minister Abdur Rezzak Mollah created a controversy when praised the role of shalishi courts for solving such disputes related to inter-caste marriages.

Notes[link]

Murshidabad Location of Murshidabad in West Bengal and India
Coordinates	24°11′N 88°16′E / 24.18°N 88.27°E / 24.18; 88.27Coordinates: 24°11′N 88°16′E / 24.18°N 88.27°E / 24.18; 88.27
District(s)	Murshidabad
Parliamentary constituency	Murshidabad
Assembly constituency	Murshidabad
Population	36,894 (2001[update])
Time zone	IST (UTC+05:30)
Area • Elevation	• 10 metres (33 ft)
Codes • Pincode • 74**** • Telephone • +91-3472-2xxxxx
Website	http://murshidabad.net/

Murshidabad (Bengali: মুর্শিদাবাদ) is a city in Murshidabad district of West Bengal state in India. The city of Murshidabad is located on the southern bank of the Bhagirathi, a distributary of the Ganges River. It was the capital of undivided Bengal during the Mughal rule. Nawabs of Bengal used to rule Bengal from this city. It is still inhabited, but has none of the glory it used to have- except for the royal buildings. Earlier European spellings include Muxadavad, Murshedabud,Murshedebad and among others.

History[link]

Murshidabad, a town and district of British India, in the Presidency division of Bengal. It was capital of Mughal period.Now The administrative headquarters of the district are at Berhampur. The town of Murshidabad is on the left bank of the Bhagirathi or old sacred channel of the Ganges. Pop. (1901), 15,168. The city of Murshidabad was the latest capital of Bengal before British era. In 1704 the nawab Murshid Quli Khan changed the seat of government from Dhaka to Maksudabad, which he called after his own name. The family of Jagat Seth maintained their position as state bankers at Murshidabad from generation to generation. Even after the conquest of Bengal by the British, Murshidabad remained for some time the seat of administration. Warren Hastings removed the supreme civil and criminal courts to Calcutta in 1772, but in 1 775 the latter court was brought back to Murshidabad again. In 1790, under Lord Cornwallis, the entire revenue and judicial staffs were fixed at Calcutta. The town is still the residence of the nawab, who ranks as the first nobleman of the province with the style of Nawab Bbahadur of Murshidabad, instead of Nawab Nazim of Bengal. The Murshidabad palace, dating from 1837, is a magnificent building in Italian style. The city still bears memories of Nawabs with other palaces, mosques, tombs, and gardens, and retains such industries as carving in ivory, gold and silver embroidery, and silk-weaving. An educational institution is named after Nawab family.

The District Of Murshidabad has an area of 2143 sq. m. It is divided into two nearly equal portions by the Bhagirathi, the ancient channel of the Ganges. The tract to the west, known as the Rarh, consists of hard clay and nodular limestone. The general level is high, but interspersed with marshes and seamed by hill torrents. The Bagri or eastern half belongs to alluvial plains of eastern Bengal. There are few permanent swamps; but the whole country is low-lying, and liable to annual inundation. In the north-west are a few small detached hillocks, said to be of basaltic formation. Pop. (1901), 1,333,184, showing an increase of 6.6% in the decade. The major industry is that of silk, formerly of much importance, and now revived with government assistance. The city is also famous for producing exotic mango and litchi. A narrow-gauge railway crosses the district, from the East Indian line at Nalhati to Azimganj on the Bhagirathi, the home of many rich Jain merchants; and a branch of the Eastern Bengal railway has been opened.Berhampore is the capital of Murshidabad. The town now become a very well known town and also populated, the area are of this town increasing gradually.

Personalities[link]

1. Nawab Sirajuddawla
2. Mahbubun Nahar
3. Aminur Rahman
4. Gholam Mahbub

Demographics[link]

As of 2001^[update] India census,^[1] Murshidabad had a population of 36,894. Males constitute 51% of the population and females 49%.About 70% of the population is Muslim. Murshidabad has an average literacy rate of 66%, higher than the national average of 59.5%: male literacy is 71%, and female literacy is 61%. In Murshidabad, 12% of the population is under 6 years of age.

Some Bhumihar Brahmins had settled in Chandipur, Murshidabad during late nineteenth and early twentieth century where they were the local landlords and are at the top of the social hierarchy.^[2]

Murshidabad City[link]

Hazarduari Palace

The origins of Murshidabad are not entirely clear. According to Ghulam Hussain, author of the Riyaz-us-Salatin, a merchant named Makhsus Khan first improved the present site of Murshidabad. Makhsus Khan had been mentioned in Akbar's biography, the Ain-i-Akbari, as a nobleman who served in Bengal and Bihar during the last decades of the sixteenth century. In Valentyn's map (1658–64) Moxudabath is shown on an island formed by the two branches of the Ganges.

In 1704, Murshid Quli Khan, the Diwan of Bengal under Aurangzeb transferred the capital from Dacca (now Dhaka in Bangladesh), and renamed the city Murshidabad. In 1716, he attained the title of Nawab (ruler) of the Subah (province) of Bengal, and Murshidabad became his capital. It continued to be the capital under a succession of Nawabs, and also under the British until 1790. It was constituted as a municipality in 1869, which remains to the present day.

palace ground and Hoogly river

While it features extensively in history books, the large potential for heritage tourism has been somewhat neglected. Of historic interest are Nizamat Kila (the Fortress of the Nawabs), also known as the Hazaarduari Palace (Palace of a Thousand Doors), built by Duncan McLeod of the Bengal Engineers in 1837, in the Italianate style, the Moti Jhil (Pearl Lake) just to the south of the palace, the Muradbagh Palace and the Khushbagh Cemetery, where the remains of Ali Vardi Khan and Siraj Ud Daulah are interred.

The city today is a center for agriculture, handicrafts and sericulture. The famous Murshidabad Silk, much in demand for making saris and scarves, is produced in the like-named city in Uttar Pradesh.

Early 19th century view of Murshidabad, the capital of the former Nawabs of Bengal

Murshidabad District[link]

See Murshidabad District

The district of Murshidabad - 2,062 sq mi (5,341 km²), population 5.863m (2001 census) - has its district headquarters at Baharampur. The district comprises two distinct regions separated by the Bhagirathi River. To the west lies the Rarh region, a high, undulating continuation of the Chota Nagpur plateau. The eastern portion, the Bagri, is a fertile, low-lying alluvial tract, part of the Ganges Delta. The district is drained by the Bhagirathi and Jalangi rivers and their tributaries. Rice, jute, legumes, oilseeds, wheat, barley, and mangoes are the chief crops in the east; extensive mulberry cultivation is carried out in the west. The district became part of the Gaur kingdom in 1197 and passed to the British East India Company in the 18th century.

Current MLA from Murshidabad assembly constituency is Bivas Chakraborty of AIFB, who won the seat in State elections of 2006. Chhaya Ghosh of FBL had won this seat in 2001, 1991, 1982 and in 1977. Independent candidate Mozammel Haque was MLA from this seat in 1996. Mannan Hossain of INC had won this seat in 1987.^[3]

Tourist Attraction[link]

There are a many buildings of historical importance which attract tpurist from both India and abroad. Some like the Hazarduari Palace, Nashipur Rajbari, Kathgola and Jahan Kosha Cannon are some of the must visit places. All of them have seen the rise and fall of the Nawabs. There are also some like Roshnibagh and Khoshbagh on the west bank of Bhagirathi River.

Dhuliyan City[link]

Dhuliyan is one of the oldest city of Murshidabad. There is lot of Bidi (Tobacco) company in Dhuliyan city and Aurangabad like Pataka Bidi, Shiv Bidi, Noor Bidi,Bazrang Bidi etc. Pataka Bidi company is famous in India. It has many sector like hospital,tea and Fmcg etc. Pranab Mukherjee is member of parliament from Jangipur City of Murshidabad.

Murshidabad assembly constituency is part of Murshidabad (Lok Sabha constituency).^[4]

References[link]

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Murshidabad.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Murshidabad

• District website
• Murshidabad travel guide from Wikitravel

v t e Cities, towns and locations in Murshidabad District Cities and Towns Barhampur subdivision Baharampur Beldanga Goaljan Gora Bazar Kasim Bazar Domkol subdivision Domkal Harharia Chak Lalbag subdivision Jiaganj Azimganj Lalgola Murshidabad Kandi subdivision Kandi Jangipur subdivision Anup Nagar Aurangabad Chachanda Charka Dafahat Dhulian Dhusaripara Farrakka Barrage Township Fatellapur Ghorsala Jagtaj Jahangirpur Jot Kamal Kankuria Khodarampur Paschim Punropara Sahajadpur Serpur Srikantabati Uttar Mahammadpur Locations other than cities and towns Morgram Related topics Murshidabad topics People from Murshidabad district Villages in Murshidabad district Cities, towns and locations in other districts Bankura Bardhaman Birbhum Cooch Behar Dakshin Dinajpur Darjeeling Hooghly Howrah Jalpaiguri Malda Nadia North 24 Parganas Paschim Medinipur Purba Medinipur Purulia South 24 Parganas Uttar Dinajpur West Bengal portal