Durga Puja preparations peak in Khulna
Mamun Khan . Khulna
Preparations for Durga Puja have peaked in Khulna, having a large Hindu population, with families rushing to markets to buy festival wear and making other arrangements for the occasion.
The five-day Durga Puja, the main religious festival of the Bengali Hindu community, will begin on October 2 to end on October 6.
A total of 929 puja mandaps have been established in the city and nine upazilas of the district on the occasion, informed Khulna district unit of Bangladesh Puja Udjapan Parishad.
Krishna Pada Das, Khulna district general secretary of the organisation, informed that this year Durga Puja would be held at 141 mandaps at Paikgachha, at 66 at Rupsha, 44 at Kayra, 86 at Terokhada, 70 at Dacope, 82 at Batiaghata, 154 at Dumuria, 30 mandaps at Phultala and 56 mandaps at Dighalia upazila.
All the 31 wards of the city are having 68 mandaps with many of them having more than one, he added.
The rituals will be held at 68 mandaps in the 31 wards of the city, said BPUP Khulna city president Gopi Kishan Mundhara.
The artisans at all the mandaps are in the middle of their making the huge idols of Goddess Durga with the retinue of her four children and Mahishasura, BPUP leaders said.
The mandap decorators in different areas are busy in collecting materials to give the stage where the Goddess will be set a thoroughly decorative look with fancy electric lighting and other arrangements.
Cultural programmes and Arati competition, regular appendages of the festival, will also be held at every mandap, said the organisers.
The Khulna Metropolitan Police have undertaken special measures to ensure safety of the puja sites in the city, said a source at the KMP, adding that at least eight armed law enforcers will be deployed at every mandap.
A total of 13 mobile police teams and nine patrol teams will also be on duty during the puja days, he said.
An official of the district Ansar informed that nearly 3,900 armed Ansar members would be deployed at the puja mandaps of the nine upazilas.
Khulna police superintendent Tanvir Haidar Chowdhury termed the security preparation in the region as sufficient.
New Age | Newspaper