Chitpur

Chitpur (or Chitpore) (Bengali: চিৎপুর) is a neighbourhood in north Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) in the Indian state of West Bengal. Sometimes, the entire area along Chitpur Road is referred to as Chitpur, although the various localities have distinctive names.

Chitpur has existed for at least 400 years. It received its name from the goddess Chiteswari, who had a splendid temple here erected by Gobindram Mitter, where human sacrifices used to be offered. The lofty dome of the temple, which was known as Nabarutna or the shrine of nine jewels, fell during the earthquake of 1737, and it is now in ruins.

According to another source, the area was earlier named Chitrapur. It is referred to in Bipradas Pipilai's poem Manasamangal in 1495, but it could be a later interpolation. According to it, Chitpur was home to Chakrapani, Commander-in-Chief of the Nawab of Bengal's army, and had a flourishing colony of artists. It refers to one Gobinda Ghosh as founder of the Chiteswari temple in 1610. The most notorious bandit of the region was Chitey Dakat, who offered human sacrifices at the temple. The area could also have acquired its name from him.

It was one of the thirty-eight villages whose right to rent the English obtained from Emperor Farukshiyar in 1717. It was later reorganised as Dihi Chitpur with Chitpur, Tala, Birpara and Kalidaha villages under it.

There was a house and garden of Mahmed Reza Khan, the Chitpur Nawab, to whom the administration of Bengal was assigned for several years after the British East India Company acquired the dewani of Bengal from the Mughal emperors in Delhi. The Chitpur Nawab lived on terms of intimacy with the 'powers' of the day and was accounted by them as a personage of first rank. The foreign governors—Danish, French, and Dutch—on their visits to Kolkata from Serampore, Chandannagar and Chinsurah, made it a practice to halt at Chitpur on their way to the Government House.

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