If you are not a student then the campus of IIT Kharagpur is a rather boring place on weekends. To pass the time and find something worthwhile to do, Indira googled for places of interest in the neighbourhood and located the page for tourist places in West Midnapore . This pointed us to Kurumbhera Durgo ( or Fort Kurumbhera ) located near Keshiary, a little town located 22 km to the south of the campus. Today, morning we visited the place and you can see the pictures here.
This so-called Fort is actually a temple that was demolished and converted into a simple mosque. Read this piece of history at Live History India.
This so-called Fort is actually a temple that was demolished and converted into a simple mosque. Read this piece of history at Live History India.
How to reach this place ? Take the road from IIT Kharagpur that goes southward towards Salua, Keshiary and Bhosraghat. Keshiary is 23 kms from the IIT gate. At Keshiary, take the left on the road to Belda. Go for about 2 kms until you reach the village of Kukai. Take the morram (kutcha, but motorable ) road on the right and keep going till you reach the village of Gaganeshwar which would be about 2 kms from the main road. The fort is at Gaganeshwar. Please note that there are no tourist facilities at the village but the economic opportunity around this medieval ruin is explored in this post.
Situated four miles south-east from Keshiari village. Ruins of Kurumbera Fort , inside 10 ft high fort wall you can see small quarters and temples , there is an ancient Siva temple . Built in the year 1438-1469 (written in Oriya inscription) during Kapileswar Deb's period. Also there is an ancient mosque built by Muhammad Tahir during Aurangjeb's period in the year 1691 (stone inscription). -- from http://www.midnapore.in/tourism_keshiari.html
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