Sitakunda Upazila - History

History

The legends of the area state the sage Bhargava created a pond (kunda) for Sita Devi to bathe in when her husband Lord Ramchandra visited during his exile in the forests. Sitakunda derived its name from this incident.

Sitakunda has been occupied by humans since the Neolithic era; tools associated with the prehistoric Assam group have been found throughout the area. In 1886, shouldered celts manufactured from petrified wood were discovered, as reported by Indian archaeologist Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay in his book Banglar Itihas, or History of Bengal, (volume I, 1914). In 1917, British mineralogist Dr. J. Coggin Brown uncovered more prehistoric celts. Large quantities of pebbles have also been found, but archaeologists have not determined whether they were used in the construction of prehistoric tools.

During the 6th and 7th centuries CE, the Chittagong region was ruled by the Kingdom of Arakan. In the next century, it was briefly ruled by Dharmapala (reign: 770–810) of the Pala Empire. The area was conquered in 1340 by Sultan Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah (reign: 1338–1349) of Sonargaon, who founded the first dynasty of the Sultanate of Bengal. When Sultan Ghiyasuddin Mahmud Shah (reign: 1533–1538) of the last dynasty of the Sultanate of Bengal was defeated in 1538 by Sher Shah Suri of the Sur Dynasty, the Arakanese captured the region again. Batsauphyu (reign: 1459–1482) of the Mrauk U dynasty took advantage of the weakness of Sultan Barbak Shah of Bengal to lead the invasion. In this period, Keyakchu (or Chandrajyoti), a prince of Arakan, established a monastery in Sitakunda. Between 1538 and 1666, Portuguese privateers (known as Firinghis or Harmads) made inroads into Chittagong and ruled the region in alliance with Arakanese pirates. During those 128 years, the eastern coast of Bengal became a home to pirates of Portuguese and Arakanese origins. For a brief period in 1550, it was taken over by Pagan invaders. In 1666, Mughal commander Bujurg Umed Khan conquered the area.

Along with the rest of Bengal, Sitakunda came under the rule of the British East India Company after the company's defeat of the Nawab of Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in 1757. Rapid growth in the Bengali population since then resulted in an exodus of non-Bengali people from Sitakunda and its vicinity to the Chittagong Hill Tracts. During the Ardhodaya Yog movement, a part of the Swadeshi Indian independence movement, the governance of Sitakunda was briefly in the hands of Indian nationalists when, in February 1908, they took over the central government in Kolkata. In 1910, Indian Petroleum Prospecting Company drilled here for hydrocarbon exploration, the first such activity in East Bengal. In 1914, the first onshore wildcat well in Bangladesh was drilled at Sitakunda anticline to a depth of 762 metres (2,500 ft). By 1914, however, all four of the wells drilled had proven to be failures.

After the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the British colonial government (British Raj) replaced the governance of the East India Company. When the British withdrew in 1947, after creating the independent states of India and Pakistan, Sitakunda became a part of East Pakistan. The potential for a ship breaking industry first appeared in 1964 when Chittagong Steel House started scrapping MD Alpince, a 20,000 metric tons (19,684 long tons) Greek ship that had been accidentally beached near Fouzdarhat by a tidal bore four years earlier. During the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, Sitakunda was part of Sector 1, led by Ziaur Rahman and Major Rafiqul Islam of the Mukti Bahini, the forces fighting for the independence of Bangladesh. The ship breaking industry began in earnest in 1974 when Karnafully Metal Works started scrapping Al Abbas, a Pakistani ship damaged in 1971, and flourished in the 1980s. As of 2007, Sitakunda had overtaken the ship breaking industries of India and Pakistan to become the largest in the world.

In the early 2000s, Islamic militant organization Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) leader Siddikul Islam (also known as Bangla Bhai) ran militant training centers in the upazila at which participants learned to make bombs and handle firearms. One of his followers, Mahfuzul Huq, was captured on 21 February 2006.