Atiqa Bano

Atiqa Bano (Behan Ji) (1940 – 4 October 2017) was an Indian educationist and activist for the artistic and cultural heritage of Kashmir. She established and curated the Meeras Mahal, a private museum of history and art at Highland Colony, Sopore in Baramulla Kashmir.

Biography Atiqa Bano was born in 1940 in Sopore in the Kashmir North district of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir in British India. Her father, Molvi Mohammad Yasin Masoodi, was a freedom fighter. He died when she was a few months old, and she was brought up by her mother.

Bano obtained an undergraduate degree from the Women's College, Srinagar, followed by two master's degrees in economics and in Urdu. She then attended Banasthali Vidyapeeth in Rajasthan for a postgraduate degree in education. The organisation also instructed Women in Calligraphy and the teaching of the Qur'an.

Museum Part of Bano's career as schools inspector entailed travel across the state. Encountering the diversity of material culture in Kashmir, she thought of establishing a Museum. After retirement, she began then to collect historical and cultural artefacts, especially traditional ware and old manuscripts. Initially she housed them in a derelict hostel building that was part of a college of education that her family owned.