Bhitargarh fort, Panchagarh

Bhitargarh is one of the ancient forts in Bangladesh. It’s located about 16 km northeast of Panchagarh town in Amarkhana Union under Panchagarh district. It is the largest fortified settlement in Bangladesh, extending over an area of about 25 square km. The site is actually transnational because portions of its outer enclosures on the northwest, the north and the east lie in Jalpaiguri district, West Bengal, India. 

Physio-graphically, Bhitargarh lies in the Old Himalayan Piedmont Plain. The topsoil of the site, known as Black Terai soil, is very dark grey or black in color. At places, the texture of the soil is loamy sand but over most of the landscape, it is sandy clay loam. The major hydro-graphic determinants of the site are two rivers that originate in Jalpaiguri district (India), namely the Talma in the west and the Kudum in the east. Both the rivers are currently tributaries of the Karatoya. 

Beside the two rivers a total of ten dighis or tanks serviced the site in ancient period. These are: Maharajar Dighi, Kabarguri Dighi, Phulpukuri, Kodal-dhoya Dighi, Bara Malani Dighi, Singari Dighi, Baghpukuri, Jhaljhali Dighi and Chota Malani Dighi. Of these, Maharajar Dighi, covers an area of 53 acres and is enclosed with lofty embankments. 

When Francis Buchanan visited the site in the first half of the 19th century, found that the local Hindus considered Prthu Raja a very holy person, “who was so much afraid of having his purity sullied, that, on the approach of an abominable tribe of impure feeders named Kichok, he threw himself into a tank, and was followed by his guards, so that the town was given up to plunder and the family ceased to reign.”