Hayat Mahmud

He is best known as a freedom fighter against the British East India Company, and for the construction of the Miah Bari Mosque, which continues to be a popular tourist attraction in southern Bangladesh.

[1] Hayat Mahmud was born in the 18th century, and was most probably the son of Maldar Khan, who was employed in the military of the feudal Raja of Chandradwip.

[2] Having now become a powerful feudal lord in South Bengal, the British East India Company later posed a threat to his status.

The Company sepoys managed to capture him in 1789 and took him to their ally Nusrat Jung, the erstwhile Naib Nazim of Jahangir Nagar, who was considered to have been an anglophile.

Lord Cornwallis then had Mahmud exiled to the Prince of Wales Island in British Malaya and stripped his zamindari of Buzurg-Umedpur.