Monument and memorial, Jamalpur
Kamalpur battlefield and memorialকামালপুর রণাঙ্গন ও স্মৃতিসৌধ
- Time needed
- Half an hour to an hour.
The border post at Dhanua Kamalpur, Bakshiganj, where Sector 11 fought the Pakistan army from July to December 1971, one of the longest battles of the war; a memorial, the graves and now a land port beside it.
At a glance
- The battle
- 31 July to 4 December 1971, Sector 11
- Surrender
- 4 December 1971, 220 soldiers under Captain Ahsan Malik
- From Bakshiganj
- About 11 km, on the Bakshiganj–Kamalpur–Roumari road
About
Kamalpur was a Pakistani border outpost on the road from Meghalaya into Jamalpur, and whoever held it held the way to Dhaka from the north. On 31 July 1971 the 1st East Bengal Regiment of Z Force attacked it and lost Captain Salahuddin Mumtaz and about thirty-five fighters; on 13 November Sector Commander Colonel Abu Taher led another assault and lost a leg to a mine. From late November the Mukti Bahini and the Indian army besieged the post for eleven days, and on 4 December Captain Ahsan Malik surrendered with 220 men, the surrender letter carried in by a teenage courier, Bashir Ahmed, later Bir Pratik. The fall of Kamalpur opened the road to Jamalpur and Dhaka.
Today a memorial marks the battlefield in Dhanua Kamalpur union, with the graves of the fallen nearby, and the Dhanua Kamalpur land port, opened in 2023 on the same border crossing, has brought trucks and traders to what was a quiet frontier. Bakshiganj town is 11 km away, Lauchapra hills close by on the same border.
Getting there: From Jamalpur town to Bakshiganj by bus or CNG, then a CNG along the Kamalpur road, about 11 km.
Things to do
- Pay respects at the memorial and the graves of the fighters.
- Combine it with Lauchapra on the same border.
Good to know
- It is a working border and land port: carry your ID and do not photograph the BGB posts.
