Category: 2. World

DHAKA:

For more than a century, the fate of the dazzling Darya-e-Noor diamond has been sealed inside a bank vault — a mystery that haunts Khawaja Naim Murad, great-grandson of the last prince, or Nawab, of Dhaka.

Locked away in 1908, were the family’s heirlooms lost during the violence at the end of British rule in 1947?

Did they survive Bangladesh’s war of independence in 1971 and the string of coups that followed, or are they still safe, dusty but untouched?

Many suspect the jewels are long gone, and officials at the state-run bank hesitate to simply open the vault, fearing they’d carry the cost if it is empty.

But the cash-strapped South Asian government have now ordered a committee unseal the vault — and Murad clings to hope.

“This is not a fairytale,” said Murad, 55, recounting a story passed down from his father about the giant diamond dubbed the “River of Light”, the centrepiece rock of glittering armband.

“The diamond was rectangular in shape and surrounded by more than half a dozen smaller diamonds,” Murad told AFP.

It was part of a trove of 108 treasures. According to original court documents, they include a gold-and-silver sword encrusted with diamonds, a bejewelled fez with cascading pearls, and a fabulous star brooch once owned by a French empress.

The nawab’s riverside pink palace of Ahsan Manzil is now a government museum.

Murad, a former popular film star, lives in a sprawling villa in a wealthy Dhaka suburb.

He flourished a sheaf of documents, including a family book with detailed paintings of the treasures.

“It is one of the most famous diamonds in the world, and its history is closely associated with that of the Koh-i-Noor,” the book reports, referring to the shining centrepiece of Britain’s crown jewels — a gem also claimed by Afghanistan, India, Iran and Pakistan.

“It is absolutely perfect in lustre.”

Another diamond of the same name, the pink-hued Daria-i-Noor, is in Tehran as part of Iran’s former royal jewels.

Murad maintains that the family’s diamond, too, was once owned by Persia’s shahs, then worn by Sikh warrior-leader Ranjit Singh in 19th-century Punjab. It was later seized by the British and eventually acquired by his ancestors.

But fortunes shifted. In 1908, the then-nawab faced financial trouble.

Sir Salimullah Bahadur borrowed from British colonial powers — mortgaging his vast Dhaka estates and placing the treasures in a vault as collateral.

That was their last confirmed sighting. Since then, myth and history merge.

Murad believes his uncle saw the jewels in the bank in the 1980s, but bank officials say they do not know if the vault has ever been opened.

Chairman of the Bangladesh’s Land Reforms Board, AJM Salahuddin Nagri, says the government body inherited custody of the trove, held in a state-owned bank.

“But I haven’t seen any of the jewels yet,” he told AFP.

The 1908 court papers did not specify the diamond’s carat weight but valued it at 500,000 rupees — part of a hoard worth 1.8 million rupees.

By today’s conversion, that equals roughly $13 million, though experts say the market value of such rare and large jewels has since sometimes soared many times higher.

Today’s guardian, Shawkat Ali Khan, managing director of Sonali Bank, said the safe remains shut.

“The vault is sealed,” Khan said. “Many years back, an inspection team came to check on the jewels, but they never really opened it — they just opened the gate that held the vault.” AFP

Hamas has urged the United Nations and the wider international community to intervene immediately to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza, as the Israeli army escalated its brutal assaults on Gaza City and elsewhere in the enclave.

At least 73 Palestinians, including several aid seekers, were killed in relentless Israeli bombardments across Gaza on Wednesday, among them 43 in Gaza City alone.

Entire families are being killed together in their tents and shelters as the Israeli forces are targeting densely populated areas in Gaza.

“My brother was killed, struck inside his room. They killed him with his wife and children; they erased them all. No one is left,” Sabreen al-Mabhuh, a displaced Palestinian, told Al Jazeera.

Israeli grenades have also ignited tents at schools sheltering displaced families in Sheikh Radwan, Reuters reported. “Sheikh Radwan is being turned upside-down,” resident Zakeya Sami said. “If the takeover of Gaza City isn’t stopped, we might die. We won’t forgive anyone who watches this and does nothing.”

Gaza’s media office says Israel has detonated at least 100 explosive-laden robots in Gaza City over the past three weeks to destroy entire residential blocks and neighbourhoods. About 1,100 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza City alone during Israel’s assault there since August 13.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Gaza City, described the situation as apocalyptic. “It feels endless and all-consuming … entire neighbourhoods are being erased block by block,” he said. “People are losing everything they’ve built over decades. For many, this feels like a living nightmare.”

Hamas ready to accept a comprehensive ceasefire

In a statement on Wednesday, Hamas reiterated its readiness to accept a comprehensive Gaza ceasefire and release of all Israeli captives in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

The call came as Gaza’s Health Ministry reported six more deaths from “famine and malnutrition” in the past 24 hours, including a child. It said 367 Palestinians, 131 of them children, have died from hunger-related causes during Israel’s blockade, which continues to severely limit the entry of food and aid.

Hamas also slammed Israel for committing “horrific war crimes” with a strike on the al-Jarisi family home in northern Gaza City, which killed at least 10, calling it part of a systematic campaign to destroy Palestinian life.

The Israeli operation to seize Gaza City will likely displace one million Palestinians, with most of the enclave’s 2.3 million people displaced multiple times. A spokesperson for UN chief Antonio Guterres on Wednesday said that more than 82,000 new cases of forced displacement were recorded in Gaza between August 14 and 31, including 30,000 people forced from north to south.

UNICEF has warned that 132,000 children under five are at risk of dying from acute malnutrition by mid-2026, adding up to more than 320,000 Palestinian children facing severe hunger. “With famine at risk of spreading, children urgently need a mass influx of humanitarian aid – including specialised nutrition products,” the agency said on X.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification confirmed in August that famine conditions had gripped northern Gaza and were rapidly spreading south. Aid workers say the total Israeli blockade has turned basic survival into a daily struggle.

Abdullah Al-Arian, an associate professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, said Israel’s scorched-earth offensive shows it is waging genocide with “total impunity”. He noted that Palestinians are refusing evacuation orders due to exhaustion from repeated displacements and the absence of safe zones, which Israeli forces have systematically bombed.

Growing global outrage

Israel has rejected Hamas’s latest offer to end the Gaza war. In a statement, the Prime Minister’s Office reiterated Israel’s stance that “the war can end immediately on the conditions set by the cabinet”, which include the release of all the Israeli captives being held in Gaza and the disarmament of Hamas.

Hamas has agreed to ceasefire proposals presented by the mediators, but it has refused to disarm until the Palestinian state is established as part of the so-called two-state solution. Qatar, which has mediated in the conflict, said that Israel has yet to agree to its latest ceasefire proposal, which was accepted by Hamas last month.

Israel’s campaign is drawing mounting international backlash. Several European countries, including France, Britain, Belgium, Canada and Australia, are expected to formally recognise a Palestinian state at the upcoming UN General Assembly later this month.

Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez slammed Europe’s response to the war on Wednesday as a “failure” that has damaged its credibility. “We can’t last longer if we want to be taken seriously on crises like Ukraine,” he said. Sanchez was the first European leader to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide.

In Scotland, First Minister John Swinney announced his government will block funding to arms companies supplying Israel. “We will pause new awards of public money to arms companies whose products are linked to countries committing genocide. That will include Israel,” he said, urging London to suspend its trade agreement with Israel.

The UAE also issued a stark warning, saying Israel’s potential annexation of the occupied West Bank would cross a “red line” and undermine the Abraham Accords. “Our position has not changed since 2020: We support a Palestinian state,” said Lana Nusseibeh, a senior UAE diplomat.

This came as Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich unveiled a plan for Israel to annex nearly all of the occupied West Bank, urging Prime Minister Netanyahu to endorse it.

Meanwhile, Utrecht University in the Netherlands announced an academic boycott of Israeli institutions over “genocidal policies” in Gaza. Rector Wilco Hazeleger said the move reflects a moral obligation. “We will not start new collaborations with Israeli parties. A boycott is in place until further notice,” he said.

United States President Donald Trump has issued a thinly veiled threat to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Ukraine, warning of unspecified consequences if he is unhappy with Moscow’s next steps in its conflict with Kyiv.

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Wednesday, Trump said he planned to talk to Putin in the coming days, but the Russian leader was aware of his administration’s stance on the war.

“I have no message to President Putin. He knows where I stand, and he’ll make a decision one way or the other,” Trump said.

“Whatever his decision is, we’ll either be happy about it or unhappy. And if we’re unhappy about it, you’ll see things happen.”

Trump’s comments came after Putin said earlier that he would be willing to meet his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Moscow amid the US president’s push for an agreement to end the war.

“Donald asked me for such a meeting. I said: ‘Yes, it’s possible, let Zelenskyy come to Moscow,’” Putin said at the end of his visit to China, where he attended Beijing’s commemorations of the 80th anniversary of Japan’s defeat in World War II.

“I have never ruled out the possibility of such a meeting,” Putin said. “But is there any point? Let’s see.”

Putin added that Moscow would achieve its aims in Ukraine militarily if it could not reach an agreement.

“Let’s see how the situation develops,” Putin said.

Responding to Putin’s comments, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said there were “serious proposals” by seven countries to host a meeting between the two leaders, which Zelenskyy was ready for at “any point in time”.

“Yet, Putin continues to mess around with everyone by making knowingly unacceptable proposals. Only increased pressure can force Russia to finally get serious about the peace process,” Sybiha wrote on social media.

Trump has suggested a one-on-one meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy as part of his efforts to bring an end to the three-and-a-half-year-long conflict.

Despite Trump’s pledge to bring a swift end to the conflict, Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart on the terms of any potential peace agreement.

Russia has said that any deal with Ukraine would need to include land in four regions it has annexed since 2022, while Kyiv has ruled out ceding any territory.

Reporting from Moscow, Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari said Putin provided an insight into how he sees the war unfolding.

“He believes that the United States administration of Donald Trump understands what Russia’s position is and that Russia would be willing to negotiate an end to this conflict, but it’s not going to submit to the demands that Ukraine is making and its own security guarantees have to be met,” Jabbari said.

Meanwhile, Zelenskyy said he hoped to speak to Trump on Thursday to push for new sanctions on Russia.

“We also have signals from the United States that it will provide a backstop, and this is important,” Zelenskyy said in Copenhagen, referring to proposed post-conflict security guarantees for Ukraine.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday that security guarantees for Ukraine were ready and would be endorsed on Thursday by the “coalition of the willing” backing Kyiv.

“We are ready as Europeans to offer security guarantees to Ukraine and the Ukrainian people, the day a peace deal is signed,” Macron said.

Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from the White House, said Trump’s upcoming talks with Putin would most likely concern his proposal for a summit between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders.

“What is interesting is that the Elysee Palace in Paris has announced that Zelenskyy will meet with the so-called coalition of the willing either virtually or in person on Thursday, and the intention is that after that meeting, there will be a phone call with Donald Trump,” Fisher said.

“Now, no confirmation yet from the White House, but that would certainly suggest the sequence of events will be coalition of the willing meeting with Zelenskyy, Zelenskyy then chats to Trump, Trump then talks to Putin, and we find out where that goes after that.”

President Donald Trump has asked the US Supreme Court to overturn a lower court decision that found many of his sweeping tariffs were illegal.

In a petition filed late on Wednesday, the administration asked the justices to quickly intervene to rule that the president has the power to impose such import taxes on foreign nations.

A divided US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit last week ruled 7-4 that the tariffs Trump brought in through an emergency economic powers act did not fall within the president’s mandate and that setting levies was “a core Congressional power”.

The case could upend Trump’s economic and foreign policy agenda and force the US to refund billions in tariffs.

Trump had justified the tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which gives the president the power to act against “unusual and extraordinary” threats.

In April, Trump declared an economic emergency, arguing that a trade imbalance had undermined domestic manufacturing and was harmful to national security.

While the appellate court ruled against the president, it postponed its decision from taking effect, allowing the Trump administration time to file an appeal.

“The stakes in this case could not be higher,” Solicitor General John Sauer said in Wednesday night’s filing.

He wrote that the lower court’s “erroneous decision has disrupted highly impactful, sensitive, ongoing diplomatic trade negotiations, and cast a pall of legal uncertainty over the President’s efforts to protect our country by preventing an unprecedented economic and foreign policy crisis”.

Lawyers representing small businesses challenging the tariffs said they were confident they would win the case.

“These unlawful tariffs are inflicting serious harm on small businesses and jeopardising their survival,” said Jeffrey Schwab of Liberty Justice Center. “We hope for a prompt resolution of this case for our clients.”

If the Supreme Court justices deny the review, the ruling could take effect on 14 October.

In May, the New York-based Court of International Trade declared the tariffs were unlawful. That decision was also put on hold during the appeal process.

The rulings came in response to lawsuits filed by small businesses and a coalition of US states opposing the tariffs.

In April, Trump signed executive orders imposing a baseline 10% tariff as well as “reciprocal” tariffs intended to correct trade imbalances on more than 90 countries.

In addition to those tariffs, the appellate court ruling also strikes down levies on Canada, Mexico and China, which Trump argues are necessary to stop the importation of drugs.

The decision does not apply to some other US duties, like those imposed on steel and aluminium, which were brought in under a different presidential authority.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday urged the Supreme Court to step into the fray over his emergency tariffs, putting the centerpiece of his economic agenda in the hands of the justices who have mostly backed his sweeping view of executive power, according to a copy of the appeal obtained by CNN.

Trump is pressing the justices to overturn a lower court ruling that found his administration acted unlawfully by imposing many of his sweeping import taxes, and he has framed the case in existential terms.

“The stock market needs the tariffs, they want the tariffs,” Trump said Tuesday in the Oval Office, asserting that an adverse decision would mean “devastation for our country.”

The case once again raises fundamental questions for the court about a president’s power to act unilaterally and without explicit authority from Congress. Trump’s critics note that the last president to raise tariffs under similar circumstances was Richard Nixon, and Congress later pared back the president’s power.

“To the president and his most senior advisors, these tariffs thus present a stark choice: With tariffs, we are a rich nation; without tariffs, we are a poor nation,” according to the appeal.

The appeal follows a divided decision Friday from a federal appeals court in Washington that found Trump overstepped his authority by relying on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose the tariffs. The authority to impose taxes, including tariffs, is “a core congressional power” that the Constitution left to the legislative branch, the appeals court ruled.

Trump has relied on the 1970s-era emergency law, known as IEEPA, to reshape not just global trade, but also alliances with allies and adversaries. If some of the powers he’s claimed to set those tariffs are permanently blocked, the administration would need to find other levers to accomplish its ambitious foreign policy goals.

At the center of the case are the “Liberation Day” tariffs Trump announced in April and tariffs placed this year against China, Mexico and Canada that were designed to combat fentanyl entering the United States. A wine importer, VOS Selections, and other small businesses sued, along with a dozen states, arguing Trump had exceeded his authority.

“Both federal courts that considered the issue agreed that IEEPA does not give the president unchecked tariff authority,” said Jeffrey Schwab, senior counsel and director of litigation for Liberty Justice Center, which is representing the plaintiffs in the case. “These unlawful tariffs are inflicting serious harm on small businesses and jeopardizing their survival. We hope for a prompt resolution of this case for our clients.”

The Trump administration has requested an unusually speedy review by the Supreme Court, asking that the justices decide whether to hear the case by September 10 and tee up arguments for early November. The plaintiffs in the case have agreed to that rapid timeline.

A federal court in New York agreed in late May and sided with the companies and states. The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld that decision. However, the appeals court let the tariffs stand temporarily while the litigation continues.

The lower court’s decision, the Trump administration argued to the Supreme Court, “would, in the president’s view, unilaterally disarm the United States and allow other nations to hold America’s economy hostage to their retaliatory trade policies.”

While the bulk of the tariffs Trump imposed during his second term, which cited emergency economic powers, could ultimately be rendered illegal, the president has plenty of other levers he can pull to continue pushing his tariff-heavy agenda.

That’s because Trump hasn’t just been using IEEPA to levy tariffs. All the sectoral tariffs Trump has imposed during his second term, most recently a 50% tariff on derivatives of steel and aluminum, such as spray deodorants and baby strollers, have used Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.

The Section 232 authority gives the president the authority to impose higher tariffs on national security grounds. But it can only be used to target specific sectors and requires an investigation to be launched before tariffs can be imposed.

Similarly, there are several other methods Trump can use to impose tariffs that aren’t currently facing legal challenges. However, they too have catches that could make it harder for him to dangle and then withdraw duties quickly, as he has repeatedly done since retaking power in January.

The ongoing case is not the first to reach the Supreme Court dealing with Trump’s emergency tariffs. Two American family-owned toy companies filed a similar appeal in June. The court is scheduled to meet behind closed doors later this month to consider whether to hear arguments in that case.

The legal fight over the tariffs is likely to implicate a theory that conservative groups repeatedly used successfully at the Supreme Court in recent years to block former President Joe Biden’s agenda, including his effort to forgive student loans. The court repeatedly relied on the “major questions doctrine” to trim the power of the White House and federal agencies to act without congressional approval.

The federal law at issue allows a president to “regulate … importation” during emergencies, but the statute does not specifically address tariffs.

The law “bestows significant authority on the president to undertake a number of actions in response to a declared national emergency,” the appeals court wrote in its decision. “But none of these actions explicitly include the power to impose tariffs, duties, or the like, or the power to tax.”

Trade agreements and tariff revenue at stake

Record levels of tariff revenue have been flowing into the US Treasury Department’s general account since Trump ramped up in the spring. Over the course of the 2025 fiscal year, more than $210 billion in tariff revenue stemmed from the IEEPA-related tariffs, according to data from US Customs and Border Protection.

If the Supreme Court doesn’t hear the Trump administration’s appeal or sides with the lower courts, American importers could be due refunds.

Trump acknowledged that potential consequence earlier this week, as well as the impact the case outcome could have on a handful of recent trade agreements that are still being worked out.

“Numerous of the trade deals that I made were because of tariffs. It gives you a great negotiating ability,” Trump said Tuesday.

But those agreements could quickly fall apart because Trump has cited IEEPA in imposing tariffs on other trading partners’ goods. It’s also possible other trading partners could leverage Trump’s weakened ability to impose tariffs on their exports by negotiating more favorable terms to trade agreements.

This story has been updated with additional details.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he watched China’s military parade on Wednesday with admiration and praised his relations with the leaders of North Korea, China and Russia, but added that these relations will be tested in the coming weeks.

Speaking to reporters during a meeting in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump said “my relationship with all of them is very good,” referring to Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. “We’re going to find out how good it is over the next week or two.”

• 24 Palestinians killed as military pushes further into Gaza City
• UN Committee on the Rights of Persons says 21,000 children disabled in the conflict

DUBAI: The United Arab Emirates warned Israel on Wednesday that annexation in the occupied West Bank would be a “red line” that would severely undermine the Abraham Accords that normalised relations between the two countries.

The comments came as US President Donald Trump, who first brokered the accords, seeks to expand them in his current term, though efforts have stalled amid growing international criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war.

The warning followed an announcement in August by Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich that work would start on a long-delayed settlement intended to divide the West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem. Smotrich has also called for annexing the West Bank.

“From the very beginning, we viewed the Accords as a way to enable our continued support for the Palestinian people and their legitimate aspiration for an independent state,” United Arab Emira­tes’s Assistant Minister for Political Affairs and Envoy of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Lana Nusseibeh told Reuters. “We call on the Israeli government to suspend these [settlement] plans.”

Ms Nusseibeh added that annexation “would constitute a red line for the United Arab Emirates,” as it would undermine the “vision and spirit” of the accords and end the pursuit of regional integration.

The Israeli prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. However, on Wednesday, Smotrich said maps were being drawn up for annexing territory, though it was unclear if he had Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s support.

Gaza offensive

The diplomatic friction comes as the Israeli military pushed deeper into Gaza City, with soldiers and tanks entering Sheikh Radwan, one of the urban center’s most crowded neighbourhoods.

Residents said the military destroyed homes and tent encampments that housed Palestinians displaced by the war.

According to local health officials, at least 24 Palestinians, including children, were killed across Gaza, most of them in Gaza City, on Wednesday.

“Sheikh Radwan is being burnt upside-down.

The occupation destroyed houses, burnt tents, and drones played audio messages ordering people to leave the area,” said Zakeya Sami, 60.

“If the takeover of Gaza City isn’t stopped, we might die, and we are not going to forgive anyone who stands and watches,” she told Reuters.

Witnesses said the military also dropped grenades on three schools in the Sheikh Radwan area sheltering displaced families and bombed a medical clinic, destroying two ambulances.

Netanyahu has ordered the military to take the city, which he describes as the last stronghold of Hamas.

In Israel, public sentiment has increasingly favoured ending the war in a deal to release the remaining prisoners.

In Jerusalem on Wednesday, protesters climbed the roof of Israel’s national library, displaying a banner that read, “You have abandoned and also killed.”

Children disabled

The war’s devastating toll on civilians was highlighted in a United Nations report Wednesday, which found that at least 21,000 children in Gaza have been disabled since the conflict began.

The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities said that of the 40,500 children who have suffered new war-related injuries, more than half have been left disabled.

The committee reported that Israeli evacuation orders were “often inaccessible” to people with hearing or visual impairments. Committee member Muhannad Al-Azzeh cited the example of a deaf mother in Rafah killed with her children, unaware of evacuation instructions.

Restrictions on humanitarian aid have disproportionately affected people with disabilities, who face severe disruptions to assistance, leaving many without food, water, or sanitation.

The committee noted that 83 per cent of disabled people have lost assistive devices like wheelchairs and walkers, which Israeli authorities often consider “dual-use items” and exclude from aid shipments.

“We can’t expect children with disabilities… to be able to run and go to the (aid) points,” Mr Azzeh said. “This is why one of our main recommendations is that children with disabilities must be reached out to.”

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2025

DHAKA: For more than a century, the fate of the dazzling Darya-i-Noor (River of Light) diamond has been sealed inside a bank vault — a mystery that haunts Khawaja Naim Murad, great-grandson of the last Nawab of Dhaka.

Locked away in 1908, were the family’s heirlooms lost during the violence at the end of British rule in 1947? Did they survive the 1971 break-up of Pakistan and the string of coups that followed in Bangladesh, or are they still safe, dusty but untouched?

Many suspect the jewels are long gone, and officials at a state-run bank in Dhaka hesitate to simply open the vault, fearing they’d carry the cost if it is empty.

But the cash-strapped Bangladesh government has now ordered a committee to unseal the vault — and Murad clings to hope.

“This is not a fairytale,” said Murad, 55, recounting a story passed down from his father about the giant diamond, the centrepiece rock of glittering armband.

“The diamond was rectangular in shape and surrounded by more than half a dozen smaller diamonds,” Murad recalled.

It was part of a trove of 108 treasures. According to original court documents, they include a gold-and-silver sword encrusted with diamonds, a bejewelled fez with cascading pearls, and a fabulous star brooch once owned by a French empress.

History and myth

The nawab’s riverside pink palace of Ahsan Manzil is now a museum.

Murad, a former popular film star, lives in a sprawling villa in a wealthy Dhaka suburb.

He flourished a sheaf of documents, including a family book with detailed paintings of the treasures.

“It is one of the most famous diamonds in the world. Its history is closely associated with that of the Koh-i-Noor,” the book reports, referring to the shining centrepiece of Britain’s crown jewels — a gem also claimed by Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and Iran.

“It is absolutely perfect in lustre.”

Another diamond of the same name, the pink-hued Daria-i-Noor, is in Tehran as part of Iran’s former royal jewels.

Murad maintains that the family’s diamond, too, was once owned by Persia’s shahs, then worn by Sikh warrior-leader Ranjit Singh in 19th-century Punjab. It was later seized by the British and eventually acquired by his ancestors.

But fortunes shifted. In 1908, the then-nawab faced financial trouble.

Sir Salimullah Bahadur borrowed from British colonial powers by mortgaging his vast Dhaka estates and placing the treasures in a vault as collateral.

That was their last confirmed sighting. Since then, myth and history merge.

Murad believes his uncle saw the jewels in the bank in the 1980s, but bank officials say they do not know if the vault has ever been opened.

Salahuddin Nagri, who chairs Bangl­a­d­e­sh’s Land Reforms Board, , says the government body inherited custody of the trove, held in a state-owned bank.

“But I haven’t seen any of the jewels yet,” he said.

Vault is sealed

The 1908 court papers did not specify the diamond’s carat weight, but valued it at 500,000 rupees — part of a hoard worth 1.8 million rupees.

By today’s conversion, that equals roughly $13 million, though experts say the market value of such rare and large jewels has since sometimes soared many times higher.

Today’s guardian, Shawkat Ali Khan, managing director of Sonali Bank, said the safe remains shut.

“The vault is sealed,” Shawkat Khan said. “Many years ago an inspection team came to check on the jewels, but they never really opened it. They just opened the gate that held the vault.”

He is keen for the vault to be opened at last, though no date yet has been given.

“I am excited,” he said with a brief smile.

The family hopes to discover if any of the century-old debt remains, and whether they could reclaim the jewels.

Murad dreams of diamonds, but says his real wish is to simply see the treasure for himself.

“We believe that if anyone dies in debt, his soul never finds peace.”

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2025