Kolkata: Controversy erupted in West Bengal after a school affiliated to the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education and run by the Viswa Hindu Parishad (VHP) re-identified its location as 'Iswarpur' in place of Islampur -- a municipality in Uttar Dinajpur district.  

As questions are being raised on the authority of the school to change the name of a place, local VHP sources argued that the word 'Islam' was forced upon by the Muslim rulers and the actual name was Iswarpur, according to the Bengali daily Ananda Bazaar Patrika.

However, no record of the above claims is found.

State Education Minister Partha Chatterjee has promised to investigate into the matter.

The trend of changing names of places is in full swing in the country. In the past one year, the Centre had given consent to renaming at least 25 towns and villages across India.

The latest addition to the list of placing with changed names is Allahabad and Faizabad to Prayagraj and Ayodhya, respectively.

Some other places, which had their names changed are: Rajahmundry as Rajamahendravaram in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh; Outer Wheeler as APJ Abdul Kalam Island, situated in Bhadrak district of Odisha; Arikkod as Areekode in Malappura district of Kerala; Pindari as Pandu-Pindara in Jind district of Haryana; and Samphur as Sanphure in Kiphire district of Nagaland. However, there is a fundamental difference between the authority changing names of places and a private entity or NGO like the VHP changing a name; the latter is legally invalid.