impostor. On 29 May 1921, the claimant arrived in Dhaka in the Bhawal house with two lawyers to meet the district magistrate and collector, J.H. Lindsay, who recorded his claim. The British colonial government and the Court of Wards were not enthusiastic. Managers of the Bhawal estate sent investigators to make inquiries about the identity of the claimant and find witnesses to support their side of the story. Two investigators went to Punjab to meet Dharamdas Naga, who identified the claimant as his pupil Mal Singh of Aujla, also known as Sundardas. On 3 June the Board of Revenue announced in public that they had proof that the kumar's body had been cremated in Darjeeling and therefore the claimant was an impostor. Despite this, the public and many tenants of the Bhawal estate continued to support the claimant. Many tenants paid their rents to the claimant, who used them to hire lawyers. Solicitor Ananda Chandra Nandi agreed to represent him in court. Claimant's principal supporter was Suren Mukherjee. Both opponents and supporters of the claimant published their own articles and pamphlets propagating their cause. Some of them included alleged eyewitness reports of how a group of sanyasis had rescued the still-alive kumar from the funeral pyre, taken him away and healed him. Others compared the case with that of a historical impostor, Pratap Chand Rai; and even with the Tichborne case. Some writers wrote plays or stories to make their point about the case, some of them accusing Bibhabati and his brother of incestuous relations or conspiracy to poison the kumar. The Board of Revenue claimed that the whole matter was a conspiracy organised by interested parties who wanted to use the estate for their own purposes. When they had found a suitable candidate, they had prepared him for the part of a returned kumar with the aid of the kumar's sisters. Many Indian witnesses also stated that the claimant could not speak Bengali well, and he was mainly ignorant about the events of the kumar's youth. One of them, Mukunda Guin, was stabbed to death in September 1921. After the claimant moved to Calcutta in 1924, he also received recognition in local social circles. He joined the Bengal Landholders Association and became a director of Bengal Flotilla Service. He tried to use various official channels to argue his case until 1929, when he moved back to Dhaka and began