Lalbagh Fort

• 1. Introduction

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  Lalbagh Fort stands in the old city of Dhaka, Bangladesh, as a monument to a building that was never finished. Its original name was Fort Aurangabad, after the Mughal emperor whose son began it. Today visitors walk through lawns, past water channels and fountains, into a complex that carries the grief of a father who refused to finish what a prince had started. The questions that linger are not only about the bricks and bastions left incomplete. They are about who is buried inside those walls, why a powerful governor put down his tools and walked away, and what the fort's unfinished state tells us about the Mughal Empire's hold on Bengal.

• 2. A Prince Begins, A Father Recalls

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  Prince Muhammad Azam Shah, the third son of Emperor Aurangzeb, began construction of the fort in 1678 during his time as viceroy of Bengal. He stayed in Bengal for fifteen months before his father recalled him to help fight a war against the Marathas. The fort remained incomplete when he left.

  Shaista Khan, the new subahdar of Dhaka, took over oversight of the work. He had served as the Mughal governor of Bengal before and was an experienced administrator. Yet he never brought the fort to completion either. The reasons for that would soon become intensely personal.

• 3. The Death That Stopped the Walls

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  In 1684, Shaista Khan's daughter, Iran Dukht Pari Bibi, died inside the fort. Her name, Pari Bibi, translates as Fairy Lady. She was engaged to Prince Azam at the time of her death.

  After losing her, Shaista Khan came to believe the fort brought bad omen. He stopped construction and left the structure as it stood. Pari Bibi was buried inside the fort grounds, and her tomb now occupies the centre of the complex. Shaista Khan's conviction that the place was cursed meant that what had been planned as a full governor's residence became a site of mourning rather than administration.

  The questions about Pari Bibi's identity have not been fully settled. Some researchers claim she was a young Ahom princess, brought into Mughal custody during a military expedition near the Garo hills. Under this account, she was made to convert to Islam and was betrothed to Prince Azam. Most people, however, accept that she was Shaista Khan's own daughter.

• 4. What the Archaeologists Found

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  Excavations carried out between 1994 and 2009 by the Department of Archaeology of Bangladesh uncovered structures that had been hidden or forgotten. Researchers found that the main fort walls continued eastward, beneath what is now called Shaishta Khan Road. This led archaeologists to conclude that the present area of the fort represents only half of what Prince Azam had originally planned. The gate at the southeast of the fort fits, by position and scale, as a central gate in a much larger complex. The eastern half, likely intended for administrative use, was either left incomplete or has since disappeared.

  The excavations also revealed the sophistication of the Diwan-i-Aam, the governor's two-story residence on the east side of the complex. Beneath its bathhouse, called the Hammamkhana, archaeologists found an underground room with terracotta pipes specially made to carry both hot and cold water. Black spots on the walls of the underground room confirmed that fire had been used to heat the water. Records from the Governor of the English Factory noted that Shaista Khan lived in this building and that some Europeans were held in custody there.

• 5. Architecture of an Unfinished Empire

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  Lalbagh Fort was modelled on great Mughal complexes such as the Red Fort and Fatehpur Sikri, conceived as a miniature version of those imperial statements. Three main buildings run across the central area in a single line: the Diwan-i-Aam with its attached hammam to the east, the mosque to the west, and the Tomb of Pari Bibi between them. A water channel with fountains at regular intervals connects all three from east to west and from north to south.

  The mosque has three domes and is relatively small for the size of the site. Its external dimensions are 20.34 by 10.21 metres, and its interior measures 16.36 by 6.15 metres. A water tank for ablutions sits in front of it.

  The Tomb of Pari Bibi is covered by a false octagonal dome and wrapped in a brass plate. Its inner walls are lined entirely with white marble. Eight rooms surround the central chamber, which contains her remains. A smaller grave occupies the room at the southeastern corner.

  The southern fortification wall has five bastions at regular intervals, each two stories in height. The largest bastion sits near the main southern gate. The western wall has two bastions. The bastions contain tunnels, some of which are now sealed. Two of those tunnels are said to have once led to the ruins of Zinzira Fort on the far side of the Buriganga River.

• 6. Bengal as Imperial Engine

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  During the reign of Emperor Aurangzeb, Bengal was not a distant province. Aurangzeb himself called it the Paradise of Nations, acknowledging its role as the economic engine of the empire. Dhaka grew into an imperial city, home to one of the wealthiest elites in the Mughal world, including members of the imperial family itself.

  Mughal artillery guarded Lalbagh Fort. The fort once stood beside the Buriganga River, which has since retreated from the area. European painters recorded the fort in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, giving a sense of how the structure appeared to outside observers during that period.

  When the capital was shifted from Dhaka to Murshidabad, the city's prominence faded quickly. After the royal Mughal period ended, the fort was abandoned. It was not until 1844 that the area was renamed Lalbagh, replacing the old name Aurangabad, and the fort took on the name it carries today. The name Lalbagh refers to the reddish and pinkish hues found in Mughal architecture.

• 7. The Fort Today

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  Lalbagh Fort is among the most visited sites in Dhaka. Several pieces of artillery remain inside the grounds. The Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation is funding a restoration project for parts of the complex.

  The sealed tunnels beneath the bastions carry their own stories. One passage is said to have been used as a maze. According to local accounts, sepoys fleeing after the 1857 uprising attempted to escape through it and did not return. British soldiers who followed them also vanished. British researchers later sent an elephant and dogs into the tunnel; none returned. The tunnels were sealed after that. Whether those accounts are accurate or have grown in the telling, they reflect the way Lalbagh Fort has collected layers of legend alongside its history, a half-built monument that people have never stopped trying to complete in imagination.