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The capital city Dhaka predominantly was a city of the
Mughals. In hundred years of their vigorous rule successive Governors and
princely Viceroys who ruled the province, adorned it with many noble
monuments in the shape of magnificent palaces, mosques, tombs,
fortifications and Katras often surrounded with beautifully laid out gardens
and pavillions. Among these, a few have survived the ravages of time,
aggressive tropical climate of the land and vandal hands of man.
But the finest specimen of this period is the Aurangabad Fort, commonly
known as Lalbagh Fort, which indeed represents the unfulfilled dream of a
Mughal Prince. It occupies the south-western part of the old city,
overlooking the Buriganga on whose northern bank it stands as a silent
sentinel of the old city. Rectangular in plan, it encloses an area of 1082'
by 800' and in addition to corners and a subsidiary small unpretentious
gateway on north, it also contains within its fortified. perimeter a number
of splendid monuments, surrounded by attractive garden. These are, a small
3-domed mosque, the mausoleum of Bibi Pari, the reputed daughter of Nawab
Shaista Khan and the Hammam and Audience Hall of the Governor. The main
purpose of this fort, was to provide a defensive enclosure of the palatial
edifices of the interior and as such was a type of palace-fortress rather
than a seize-fort. |