The Christian Cemetery at Narinda

The 16th century cemetery is currently under the jurisdiction of St. Mary’s Cathedral, with 22 churches in the city having representatives as its board members. The cemetery maintained by the committee of churches is situated at Narinda.

Away from the old city, initially it was small, as is evident from the main gate of the old cemetery that stands deep inside. The gate design resembles Moorish architecture. More than 50% of the grave area looks vacant. Graves of various shapes and sizes are lying scattered mostly of indigo farmers, their family members and British soldiers. Some graves have imposing monuments and towers as seen in Muslim and Hindu shrines. Most tombstones and epitaphs eroded due to gathering of shrubs, weathering action and lack of maintenance. Prof Muntasir Mamun’s book refers a list that mentions some important persons, the oldest of 1725 AD belongs to one Nathaniel of ‘English Kuthi’. The cemetery has grave of Maj. Gen. Hamilton Wetch of Bengal Army 11 June 1856 and some English soldiers who died in the fight at Lalbagh Fort during Sepoy Mutiny (Shipahi Mutiny). 

There are some uncanny stories of ghost sightings in Narinda Christian graveyard. The broken down graves, the dark and uncared for undergrowth, the gloomy environment, all contribute to the fear of the locals who pass by the place in the dead of night.  The reason of the fear of ghosts actually arise from the fact that these graves are as old as 200 to 300 years old, some from the time of the Shipahi Mutiny of 1875. There should not be any reason to believe that those unfortunate English men would turn into ghosts only because they had a violent death so long ago. But when one passes by the graveyard all alone at night it is natural that he would look over the shoulder and send a prayer or two to the heavens for protection.

There is another small size graveyard near Narinda Cemetery, size hardly bigger than a basketball court, on a by-lane from Tipu Sultan Road where the mortal remains of Rev William Robinson (Baptist Church, Sadarghat) and some others are buried over hundred years ago.

Wikipedia