Kolkata's New Market and the Ghosts of the Murdered Women

The History of New Market

The New Market was first known as Sir Stuart Hogg Market and comes from the English colonists. By the 1850s, the British had a strong holding over large areas in the city then called Calcutta.

Because the colonists didn’t want to mingle with the native Indians at the local Bazaars they decided to build one for themselves. In 1874, the market opened to the English residents and held a big colonial sway well into the 1900s. And it is from this time that the ghost stories emerged.

The Ghosts of the Murdered Women

According to local lore, New Market is haunted by more than one ghost. The most prominent reports about the haunting at the market is about women that were murdered close to the market.

How many women that haunts the market is uncertain. Most people talk about two separate ghosts although sources vary. Although one can be sure that throughout the years there have most likely been murdered more than three women there.

The women are also said to be Anglo-Indian and are often connected with the string of murders in 1868 that had at least five victims.

Their restless spirits are said to wander the corridors of the marketplace, forever trapped between the realms of the living and the dead. It is said that they appear sometimes in a narrow lane next to the clock tower by the market.

People at the market claim they have heard the voices of the women, crying out for help. When they went to help them though, there was no one there.

**New Market:** The ghost of the two murdered women have been said to appear right by the clock tower. // Source: Sudipta Mallick/Wikimedia

The Ghost of Hogg

The murdered women is not the only one said to haunt the New Market though. The man that the market was once named after, Commissioner S.S Hogg is said to have appeared among the stalls and stores, refusing to leave the market he helped build.

He was both the Police Commissioner of Calcutta were he established the Detective Departed as well as a chairman for the Calcutta Municipal Corporation.

Through his time working as a policeman, he was involved with many murders that happened throughout the city. Perhaps also with the alleged killing of the women in New Market. Perhaps the ghosts haunting the market are connected to the string of murders from 1868, targeting white women in the streets not far from the market and close to the police station.

Especially the murder of the Anglo-Indian sex worker Rose Brown that was found on Amherst Street north of the market changed the way the police worked as the first case where they used photographic evidence. Another five women were killed that year, and it looks like they never found the killer.