Durga Puja begins today

The five-day Durga Puja, the biggest religious festival of the Hindu community, begins across the country on Friday.

The annual festival will begin through Mahashashthi Puja on Friday and end with the immersion of the goddess’ idols on Bijoya Dashami on 11 October, reports UNB news agency.

Some 19,000 Puja Mandaps are being set up on the occasion, according to Hindu community leaders.

The main Durga Puja mandaps in the city will be installed at Dhakeshwari National Temple, Ramna Kali Temple, Dhaka University Jagannath Hall, Ramakrishna Mission, Anandamayi Ashram and Loknath Brahmachariya Ashram.

Different TV channels and radio stations will broadcast special programmes while the national dailies will publish special supplementary on the occasion.

According to Hindu faith, goddess Durga comes down to the earth from the heaven to establish peace, harmony by annihilating evil forces.

Meanwhile, stringent security measures have been in place in the capital for smooth celebrations of Durga Puja.

Several thousand policemen and Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) members will remain deployed in the capital during the celebrations to ensure that people of Hindu community celebrate the Durga Puja without any hassle.

Ansar members will be deployed alongside policemen in every puja mandaps across the country in order to ward off any untoward incident and members of Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB) will patrol alongside police forces in the districts adjacent to the border, said Home minister Asaduzzaman Khan while talking to reporters at the Secretariat recently.

Meanwhile, president Abdul Hamid and prime minister Sheikh Hasina have issued separate messages greeting the Hindu community members on the occasion.

In his message, the President said, “Bangladesh is a country of communal harmony. Practicing unity, tolerance and secularism is a unique character of the people of this country.”

The President hoped that all will contribute to the national development from their respective positions keeping intact the harmony.

In a separate message, the prime minister said, “Bangladesh is safe home of all people irrespective of colour and religions. Our constitution has ensured equal rights of people irrespective of religions and colours.”