Bangladesh prepares to celebrate Saturday's grand Eid-ul-Azha festival
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With only one day remaining for holy Eid-ul-Azha, the Bangladeshi government is gearing up preparations to support people in the Muslim-majority country to celebrate the Saturday's second biggest festival exquisitely in the company of their kith and kin.
Thousands of dwellers in Bangladesh capital Dhaka have started leaving the city to celebrate Eid-ul-Azha also known as the Eid of animal sacrifice, celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Prophet Ibrahim (SW) to sacrifice his son Prophet Ismael (SW) as an act of obedience to Allah.
Eid-ul-Azha annually falls on the 10th day of the month of Zul-Hajja of the lunar Islamic calendar. It occurs the day after the pilgrims conducting Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia by Muslims worldwide, descend from mount Arafat. The festival happens to be approximately 70 days after the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
To ensure smooth and peaceful celebration of the holy Eid-ul-Azha on Nov. 28 this year, the South country's government has already deployed a total of 7,000 members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) including 2,000 in capital Dhaka.
The hustling and bustling Bangladesh's Dhaka metropolis is showing signs of tranquility in the coming days as people with or even without seat-ensuring tickets are gathering at the city's launch terminals, railway and bus stations to join relatives in their village homes.
The city streets saw less traffic Thursday, but approach roads to shopping malls and terminals were clogged by vehicles.
The pace of people leaving Dhaka gained momentum Thursday, the last working day before three-day Eid vacation starting from Friday, although a number of passengers have already left amid clamor for seats of trains, buses and launches.
State-owned Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation said it has started special Eid services from Wednesday, which would continue for the next three days, to ply on different inter-district routes in addition to the regular services considering the demands of the home bound city-dwellers.
Officials at the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority said special ferry services have also been introduced on various routes on the occasion of the festival.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh Railway had earlier said seven special trains, including four to and from the capital, would run from Wednesday for the country's different destinations much to the relief of home-bound passengers.
RAB chief Hasan Mahmud Khandakar Tuesday at a press briefing said tight security measures have also been taken at the bus stands, railway stations, lunch terminals and highways to ensure security for the homebound people.
Along with the regular force, he said the members of the intelligence wing of RAB will also be in the filed including cattle markets in civil dress to ensure security so that people can buy sacrificial animals without any hassle.
According to Bangladesh Tanners Association, more than five million animals, mostly cows and goats, were sacrificed during the last year's Eid occasion which helped its members to procure more than 40 percent of their annual raw and hides collections in this season.
The association expects that people will sacrifice more animals this year also as the government has already given festival bonus with this month's salaries to public servants while urged private sector industry owners to pay all arrears due up to October, and half month's salary for November and festival bonus before the Eid-ul-Azha.
Any industry owner failing to comply with the directive would be legally dealt with, warned the country's labour minister Khandaker Mosharraf Hossain on Sunday.
However, the Dhaka City Corporation authority has almost completed ground work to prepare the main Eid congregation in Dhaka where the country's president, many ministers and senior government officials will say Eid prayer with mass people.
The corporation authority has also been working hard to hold around 360 Eid congregations in 90 wards of the city.
The national flag of the country will be hoisted atop government and non-government offices on the Eid day while most of the streets and road islands are being decorated with flags reading Eid Mubarak in Bangla and Arabic.
Special diets reportedly will be served in hospitals, jails, government-owned welfare centers and shelter homes for children, socially handicapped people and the destitute.
Officials said additional forces will be deployed at all strategic points including commercial hubs and main eid congregation grounds in major cities to shore up security on the day of Eid-ul-Azha, the biggest religious festival of the Muslims after Eid-ul-Fitr that marks the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
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