On early morning of the 1st of February in 1911 Sepah street was still a small passage, but that morning it witnessed a bloody event. A journalist of the newspaper “Zayanderud” was on his way to collect news about the city and accidentally run into an event that took place in today’s Sepah street next to the Chaharhouz square and that was one of the hottest events of that year.
The newspaper next day published: “… our special reporter early in the morning starts collecting news from the city next to the Chaharhouz square (today it is the area in front of the Museum of Natural History). He sees a group of soldiers and other people that seem to be frightened. He asks why they are so frightened.
They reply that Mirza Abbas Khan, the chief of the Isfahan’s police, came to the house of the governor Mo’tamed Khaqan and he fired several bullets to the governor and to another person from the government.” Thus without any interference the previous chief of the Isfahan’s police kills the governor of the city.
Ali Javaherkalam, who was a ten years old boy at that time, claims that he saw Mirza Abbas Khan with his own eyes at the time he was committing a crime: “I saw someone, a tall person wearing a Caucasian woolen hat and long boots, armed with a lee-Enfield, rushing from behind the Chehel Sotoun. Some of the passersby pointed at him with their fingers and were whispering something to one another. I joined them.
I heard them saying that this rushing man is Abbas Khan the Caucasian, the chief of the Isfahan’s police, who a few moment s ago was in Chaharhouz, at the governmental office, and that he had shot Mo’tamed Khaqan, the governor of Isfahan, who was in his room sitting on his mattress and also he shot the old servant of Mo’tamed Khaqan, and now he is rushing to the Tsarist Russia’s consulate.” Thus the assassin after performing the crime took refuge at the Russia’s consulate that was located a few steps further in the Telefonkhaneh alley. It turned out later that Mo’tamed Khaqan, the governor of Isfahan, after the wave of upheaval caused by the constitutionalists came to power and started to fire officers worked with the former tyranny regime. Abbas Khan, the chief of the police, was also fired. This personal grudge led to the assassination of Mo’tamed Khaqan.
Interestingly, the Russian consulate never consented to extradite the assassin to the Iranian government, and Abbas Khan was apparently exiled to Russia.
Name Isfahan Natural History Museum
Era Timurid, Safavid
Previous name Talar-e Teymouri
Founder of musum Seyyed mohammad ali jafarian
Date of opening the musum 1990
National Registration No.891
Name Ali Javaher Kalam
Profession Author, Translator and Journalist
Fame Chief Editor of Etella’at Newspaper
Lifetime From Year 1896 thru 1976