ON the afternoon of May 16, Raigad district’s sub-registrar at Alibag stamped an unusual ‘agreement to sale’. It stated that 58-year-old Mumbai businessman Ramesh Kundanmal intended to buy the 17th century three-acre Undheri island fort off the nearby Thal village coast for Rs 2 crore from six panchas of Thal’s Undherali community. An embarrassed state moved swiftly when the deal came to light—Maharashtra’s Revenue Minister Narayan Rane announced last Saturday that he was suspending the official who registered the agreement intending the sale of what was actually a state-owned historical remain.

BUILT in the 1670s by Abyssinian seafarer Sidi Qasim in answer to the next-door Khanderi island fort of Shivaji’s admirals, Undheri saw violent battles for control of the coastline—and therefore trade—between the Sidis, the Marathas and then the British, who finally took it over in 1840. Now in an urgent, but belated, bid to give this site of history legislative protection, state archaeology officials are visiting on Tuesday, after which, says director (archaeology) Ramakrishna Hedge, ‘‘We will issue a notification for public feedback to put Undheri fort on the state’s protected monuments list. Nobody can then alter the site’s historical character.’’

But130 km away at coastal Thal the fisherman with whom Kundanmal struck the deal react acerbically. ‘‘No official had ever cared to visit the fort and see how it has been falling apart till we decided to sell it!’’ says Sheshnath Koli (38), the burly headman of Thal’s Undherali community, one of the six that comprise Thal.

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