Lohapur

Bhadrapur is a village with Gram Panchayat. It has links with Maharaja Nandakumar, is about 4–5 miles from Lohapur railway station. Maharaja Nandakumar was born around 1700 at Bhadrapur. The ruins of the Raj bari are still there. Bhadrapur is culturally and educationally the most enriched village in the Lohapur Block. Bhadrapur is also quite famous for its Durga Puja. The Banerjee Thakur Bari puja is one of the grand and glorious puja of the village Bhadrapur, this Durga Puja commenced 400 years back. And it itself is a grandeur. At Akalipur, nearby, on the banks of the Brahmani River there is a Kali temple built by Maharaja Nandakumar.[1]

Baragram is located near Lohapur railway station. It is a predominantly Muslim village. There are graves of many pirs and Muslim religious persons in this village – Lohajang, Sultan Shah, Nangta Shah, Jamal Shah, Makhdum Zilani, Makhdom Husseini, Syed Shah, Hossain Ali, Muharam Ali, Lang Shah, Darab Shah and others. Many of them came from places in the Middle-east or Central Asia, but a vast majority of the population were local converts to Islam. Over the years, the local people have been digging out numerous stone idols from all around. Most of these seem to be belonging to the Pala era. There are a large number of idols of Hindu deities but the majority are Buddhist deities, including a number of figures showing Buddha in the vajrasana pose. Many of the idols were damaged in the process of crude methods of recovery. These recoveries lead to the belief that the area was once dominated by Buddhists, who converted to Islam.[2]

Binoy Ghosh opines that the main centres of Buddhism were in eastern and northern Bengal, and it was easier to convert them to Islam because of the strong anti-Hindu mentality that the Buddhists had. Such centres were rare in western Bengal. He also notes the strong feelings of amity between Hindus and a fairly large Muslim population that he observed in Rampurhat subdivision.[2]

The headquarters of Nalhati II CD block are located at Lohapur.[3]

The northern portion of Rampurhat subdivision (shown in the map alongside) is part of the Nalhati Plains, a sub-micro physiographic region, and the southern portion is part of the Brahmani-Mayurakshi Basin, another sub-micro physiographic region occupying the area between the Brahmani in the north and the Mayurakshi in the south. There is an occasional intrusion of Rajmahal Hills, from adjoining Santhal Parganas, towards the north-western part of the subdivision. On the western side is Santhal Parganas and the boder between West Bengal and Jharkhand can be seen in the map. Murshidabad district is on the eastern side. A small portion of the Padma River and the border with Bangladesh (thick line) can be seen in the north-eastern corner of the map.[4] 96.62% of the population of Rampurhat subdivision live the rural areas and 3.38% of the population live in the urban areas.[5]

Note: The map alongside presents some of the notable locations in the area. All places marked in the map are linked in the larger full screen map.