Mughal-era weapons to be displayed at Kolkata museum

West Bengal administrator general and official trustee Biplab Roy collected some weapons that were used by soldiers of the Mughal period from Jaipur. He has brought these weapons to Kolkata and would soon showcase these at a museum that will come up in the city soon.

Kolkata: At a time when the Centre is being accused of attempting to delete Mughal history by dropping the entire chapter from class 12 history textbook of the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), the Mughal-era weapons are set to be preserved in the proposed museum in Kolkata.

Weapons including shields, swords and chest guards were collected from Jaipur and have been brought to Kolkata. Efforts are on to collect some more historical artefacts from Jaipur in the future. West Bengal administrator general and official trustee Biplab Roy told ETV Bharat, "The Mughal-era weapons were recovered from Virat Singh, an old furniture merchant in Jaipur. I shall go to Jaipur again to collect some more items."

The recovered shield sword has Urdu inscriptions of Allah's names, Roy said adding, "Just as Lord Krishna has 108 names, Allah has 99 names. Out of the 99 names, 21 names are written on this shield sword. In those days, they used to write the name of Allah on a shield sword because soldiers believed that the Almighty would protect them from all danger."

Efforts are on to preserve these weapons in the proposed museum that is set to come up in Kolkata soon. Roy is hopeful that these weapons will help the new generation to understand the country's history in a better manner. Roy's office also has several antique pictures of the city and artefacts of the British period.

Apart from the recently collected Mughal-era weapons, 71 weapons that were surrendered by the Pakistani Army in the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war is now in Kolkata. All these weapons will be showcased at the proposed museum in the coming days.