Situated at around 30 kilometres from Belagav city in North Karnataka, Mugut Khan Hubli is “a small town of 12,000 souls” as the district revenue records describe it. M. K. Hubli is nothing like the more famous Hubballi, the city of robust commerce also in North Karnataka. It got its name from a 19th century Sufi saint from Vijayapura who was also a native healer. The nomad settled in this town situated on the banks of river Ghataprabha, whose name means “a pot of sunshine”’ in Sanskrit. Mugut Khan Dargah attracts a large number of believers from Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and other regions.
M. K. Hubli is also among the few places in the country chosen for the interment of the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi. A small memorial is built around the site of the interment off the service road below the Bengaluru-Pune national highway. Some travelers stop to pay obeisance here. Another point of the detour is the Ashwath Lakshmi Narasimha temple on the banks of the Ghataprabha, a few kilometres off the main road.
