North Bengal Museum receives ancient statue of mythical Nandi

Kurigram police has formally handed an ancient stone statue of a bull, recovered from the ruined site of a Shiva temple in Kurigram's Nageshwari upazila in July last year, to the North Bengal Museum.

Kurigram Superintendent of Police (SP) Syeda Jannat Ara handed over the antique statue, weighing around 20 kilograms, to SM Abraham Lincoln, founding chairman of the museum, at the museum premises in Natuan Shahar area.

According to the police, a local farmer recovered the stone statue, which is 13 inches long and 5.5 inches wide, from the debris at Gonsair Bhita village on July 10 last year.

Following a court order on February 7, the stone statue of a bull was handed to the museum authorities yesterday noon, Sub Inspector (SI) of Nageshwari Police Station Anwarul Islam said.

Locals said farmer Sridhar Chandra recovered the reddish-white statue while he was collecting brick pieces from the ruins of the Shiva temple.

The matter was later reported to the local police, who recovered the antique from Sridhar's house the same night, they informed.

Centenarian Madhusudan Sarkar of the village said in his childhood he had seen an ancient temple made of bricks and rubble.

There was a ditch from the temple to the adjacent Kashirdara river that has a brick-built ghat on its bank.

He had heard from his grandfather that the area was once overgrown with bushes, he said, adding that a devotee, whom locals used to call Gonsai, built a temple on the bank of Kashirdara and set up a 'Shiva Linga' there.

Later, the temple became known as Gonsair arena and the village is named as Gonsair Bhita.