In 1913, the
British Raj authority established the circuit house in
Chittagong which was used as a residential building for government officials. Seven years after the establishment of the state of
Pakistan, on 5 June 1954, the newly established broadcasting center of
Radio Pakistan in the city started its journey from this building. During the
liberation war in 1971, the
Pakistan Army chose Chittagong Circuit House as their military base. They converted several rooms of the building into torture cells. They used to torture
Bengalis in these rooms. From the circuit house area later skeleton skulls of some
freedom fighters who were tortured by electric shock in this building were found. Moreover, girls were raped and tortured in this building. Raped girls were killed by the Pakistani army when they became pregnant. The bodies of the victims were later thrown into the
well adjacent to the area. On 17 December 1971, after the day of the surrender of the Pakistani army and the liberation of Chittagong, the
flag of Pakistan on the flagpole of the Circuit House building was lowered and the
flag of Bangladesh was flown by
Rafiqul Islam. At that time people gathered in front of Circuit House to welcome the freedom fighters. In 1981, President
Ziaur Rahman, founder of
Bangladesh Nationalist Party, reached the Circuit House building on 29 May to resolve a dispute between the leaders of the local wing of the BNP. At that time, Colonel
Matiur Rahman planned to capture Ziaur Rahman and bring him to
Chittagong Cantonment to demand the demotion of
Hussain Muhammad Ershad who was the then army chief of
Bangladesh Army, and the army officers who had not participated in the 1971 war on their behalf and returned from
Pakistan after the liberation war. For that purpose, on the night of 30 May, when the soldiers supported by Colonel Matiur Rahman and Lieutenant Colonel Mehbubur Rahman advanced towards the circuit house building, a fight started between Zia's security forces and them. At one stage the attackers forcibly took Ziaur Rahman out of a room in the building and Colonel Matiur Rahman shot him dead. Four days after Ziaur Rahman's death, a proposal to make the building a museum was approved by the ministry of
Abdus Sattar. It was then inaugurated during the
First Khaleda ministry on 6 September 1993. The museum is currently closed. As of 2025, the museum's building is in vulnerable state as the government had not released funds for its maintenance and renovation for the last 15 years. It was declared closed on 2 December 2025, after cracks appeared in the building due to aftershocks from the
2025 Bangladesh earthquake. On 20 March 2026, the Minister of Finance and Planning announced the renovation of the museum building. ==Description==