Govt decides to conserve Bogra palace

Amid protests by different cultural organisations, the government has decided to conserve Bogra's historic Nawab Palace, which was sold to a group of local businessmen last month.

Bogra Deputy Commissioner Ashraf Uddin yesterday received a letter from the cultural affairs ministry asking the local administration to take necessary steps in this regard.

The DC said the district administration would take measures as per the ministry directive.

The news went viral in the social media and was celebrated across the town with heritage enthusiasts distributing sweets among the people.

The palace has the merit to be considered a heritage site and should be protected under the Antiquities Act, 1968, said the cultural affairs ministry letter signed by its Senior Assistant Secretary Saniya Akhtar.

The ministry would soon issue a gazette notification, dictating ways of preserving the heritage site, a source in the DC office said.

The 150-year-old Nawab palace was sold last month for Tk 27.45 crore to three Bogra businessmen: president of Bogra's chamber of commerce Masudur Rahman Milon, its vice-president Shafiqul Islam Juwel and former vice-president Abdul Gafur.

The land was sold by Syed Hammad Ali and Syed Hamde Ali, sons of the late Mohammad Ali who became Pakistan's third prime minister in 1953.

It was not the first time that the palace land has been sold. A few years after the inauguration of a museum and an amusement park on the palace ground in 1998, 63 decimals of land were sold to a real estate company, while shopping centres were constructed on its northern portion.

Following the sale of the palace, different cultural organisations started demonstrating for its preservation and submitted a memorandum to the cultural affairs ministry   through the Bogra DC office in this regard.