Narail District - Places of Interest

Places of Interest

Motth at Borodia of Nishinathtola. The homestead of famous detective writer Dr. Nihar Ranjan Gupta is at Itna, Lohagora.

Narail Victoria College and Collegiate School is one of the oldest modern high school in Bangladesh, established in 1858 by the Landlords of Narail who were enthusiastics of education. They also established a girls' school which was a rarity in Bangladesh at that time. It's called Shib Shankar Memorial Girls' School. This school closed down due to lack of funding after they left East Pakistan for India. It was reopened by some local enthusiasts, like Mr. J Bhattacharjee, Mr. S Biswas and Mr. B Bhowmic. They borrowed furnitures from the neighbours. They went house to houses soliciting parents to send their children to the school.

Narail Palace was one of the biggest Landlord mansion in Bengal. When the Hindu landlords left East Pakistan for Kolkata after partition of India, the mansion was looted and vandalised and gradually collapsed. There is still some remains present specially the Kaalibaari (temple of goddess Kali), Shibmondir (temple of Lord Shiva) and the Bandha ghaat on the River Chitra. Some local people continued the famous Durga Puja in the mansion, but was discontinued after a few years. Part of the building was used for some time as government office. But due to lack of maintenance it gave in.

The famous writer Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay was a magistrate in Narail and his book Neelkuthi was based on the forceful cultivation of indigo in Narail by the East India Company. Narail was once declared independence from the British Raj by Ms Shorola di (Sister Shorola), as she was known at the time by her followers of independence movement of India. But the independence lasted for 3 days only.