Hijli Shaheed Bhavan & Nehru Museum of Science and Technology

Opening hours: Mon-Fri 9:30am-12:30pm and 3pm-6:30pm. Closed Saturday and Sunday.
Admission: Free
A site of profound historical irony, the Byzantine-style Hijli Detention Camp opened in 1930 to hold revolutionaries without trial. It gained tragic prominence in 1931 when guards shot and killed two unarmed, singing detainees, Santosh Kumar Mitra and Tarakeswar Sengupta. The unprecedented violence drew furious protests from Rabindranath Tagore and brought Subhas Chandra Bose to collect the bodies. After closing in 1942 and briefly serving as a WWII US Air Force center, the prison underwent a stunning symbolic reversal: in 1950, its stone cells became the first classrooms of IIT Kharagpur. Since 1990, it has housed the Nehru Museum, displaying independence archives indoors, while an incongruous Hawker Hunter jet and vintage steam locomotive sit on the leafy grounds outside.