Kasba, Kolkata  Kasba is a locality of South Kolkata, in West Bengal, India. It is situated in the southern part of the city encircled by the Sealdah South section of the Eastern Railways to the west, Dhakuria and Haltu to the south, the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass to the east and the locality of Tiljala to the north. 'Kasba' means hamlet in Bengali and that was what it was - a hamlet for the people working in the nearby leather and allied factories of Tiljala and Tangra and also for the people working in various capacities for the residents of their highly prosperous neighbouring locality of Ballygunge just across the railway track to the west. (Incidentally, the word 'kasba', which means the same in Hindi and Bengali, also means the same as the Arabic 'casbah'.) The locality is served by the Ballygunge Junction railway station on Sealdah South lines, giving a boost to its accessibility. The first breakthrough for the locality came with the construction of the Bijon Setu in 1978, a rail overbridge above the railway tracks right next to the Ballygunge Junction railway station. This has brought Kasba closer to the Kolkata mainstream and also resulted in quite a number of people finding the locality habitable. But the rowdy image of the locality persisted when, in 1982, some communists murdered 17 members of the Ananda Marg sect on this bridge. A recent and more remarkable development for Kasba was the linking of the Rash Behari Avenue to the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass via Rash Behari Connector. This link made Kasba an integral part of the growth direction that the city was taking - towards the east (via Bosepukur and Rajdanga). Rash Behari Connector is also connected to Haltu via Banku Bihari Chatterjee Road (Kasba Road) through Kasba Rathtala. Many buses ply along both the roads. Thus Kasba became more than just a passing area and stopover for a whole section of people taking the EM Bypass from Ballygunge and the whole South Kolkata. Cheap availability of land, proximity to the major business areas of the prosperous southern part of the city and excellent commuting facilities combined together taking this once volatile area to being one of the most economically viable and visible parts of the city. The first developments took place around the junction of the Rash Behari Connector and the EM Bypass - the Kasba Golpark area.