the nashya shaikh or nashya sekh(bengali: নইস্য শেখ) is a muslim community found in northern parts of the state of west bengal in india. they are culturally and linguistically similar to both rangpuri people of northern bangladesh and goalpariya people of assam. a small number of the community are also found in the neighboring state of bihar, where they are known as the bengali shaikh. these people are more commonly known as rajbongshi muslims. the nashya are considered to be an important indigenous group found in northern west bengal. they are homogeneous with the koch rajbongshi people and are bi-linguistic speaking both bengali language and koch language with koch rajbongshi language being replaced by bengali language among the newer generations.