GAIBANDHA, OCT 25, 2023 (BSS) - A 5-day long Sharadiya Durga Puja, the greatest religious festival of the Hindu Community, ended in all the seven upazilas in the district on Tuesday peacefully through the immersion of deities at different water bodies.

According to Hindu belief, this year Goddess Durga along with her children made her return journey to Kailash, her husband's abode, on Dashami, last day of the 5-day long Durga Puja.

Earlier, the Goddess Durga appeared on the mortal world from the heaven and her arrival is the cause of all happiness and affluence and also the symbol of the destruction of evil powers.

On the Dashami day, members of Hindu Community exchanged greetings with each other saying 'Shuvo Bijoya. Later, hundreds of Hindu devotees bid a tearful farewell to the deity, which is called 'Visarjan'.

Before removing the idols of Mother Durga and others gods and goddess from the altars for immersion the Hindu devotees irrespective of ages and danced and sang kirton expressing their deep emotional pathos.

They offered arati to the Devi Durga with billowing smokes from the Dhup pots seeking her divine blessing for them. Then, the idols of Goddess Durga were brought out from all the puja mandaps of the district at evening.

Thousands of devotees joined the colorful marches with music and dance as the idols were being carried on the trucks or shoulders to the nearby rivers, ponds, canals, and other water bodies for immersion.

Foolproof security measures had been taken by the law enforcing agencies including Ansar, Police, and Rab to avert any sort of unpleasant incident during the immersion, said superintendent of police (SP) Md. Kamal Hossain.

A total of 639 puja mandaps were set up in all the seven upazilas of the district this year and a large number of law enforcers were deployed in and around the puja mandaps to maintain the law and order situation, said deputy commissioner (DC) Kazi Nahid Rasul.

The government also distributed a total of 319.5tonnes of rice to the puja mandaps of the district to help the Hindu community celebrate the festival properly, the DC also said.

Initiatives were also taken to provide uninterrupted power supply to the puja mandaps at nights to enable the Hindu devotees in offering their prayers, puja, archana, kirtons, arati and other religious rituals, the DC added.

Barrister Shamim Haider Patwary, MP, Mahbub Ara Begum Gini, MP, Umme Kulsum Smrity, MP Engineer Monowar Hossain Chowdhury, MP, and, Mahmud Hasan Ripon, MP, visited the puja mandaps here separately during the puja period and exchanged their greetings to the devotees and the committee of the puja mandaps on the festival.

Apart from it, DC Kazi Nahid Rasul and SP Kamal Hossain visited the puja mandaps of the district separately and exchanged their greetings to the devotees and the committee of the puja mandaps on the festival, sources said.

Retired Principal Paresh Chandra Sarker, president of Bangladesh Puja Celebration Parishad, district unit, and its general secretary Sudev Kumar Chowdhury thanked the government for taking the necessary measures for holding the Durga Puja in the district in a peaceful way and in a befitting manner.