Riyaz al-salatin 104.1.1

104.1.1

Nawab Ibrahim Khan on being invested with the Khillat of the Nizamat of the Subah of Bengal, arrived at Jahangirnagar the Mag and Portuguese pirates and the re-conquest of Chittagong. I therefore translate freely the following contemporary account from the Alamgirnamah (Pers. text, p. 943) : — As the Mags emerging from Arrakan on war-vessels (Nawarah) and taking advantage of the struggle for supremacy between Aurangzeb and Shah Shuja', harried the coasts of Bengal, Emperor Aurangzeb sent out orders to his Bengal Viceroy, Nawab Shaista Khan, to take immediate steps for chastising the Mags. With this object in view, Nawab Shaista Khan first took steps to guard and fortify his southern frontier out-posts. He appointed an Afghan named Said with 500 rocketeers and musketeers to charge of the Noakhali out-post, Muhammad Sharif, Faujdar of Hughli, with 500 rocketeers, 1,000 infantry and 20 guns to defend the out-post of Sankram-Kadah, and set Muhammad Beg Abakash and Abul Hassan with the Imperial war-vessels which lay at Siripur to patrol the river. From Siripur to 'Alamgirnagar covering a distance of twenty-one kroh, an embanked road so that it might not be flooded during the rains was also constructed under the Nawab's order, for military purposes. The Nawab then ordered Abul Hassan to bring round Dilawar, zamindar of Sandip, or to punish him, as the latter secretly sided with the Mags.