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Biswa Ijtema begins

Kailash Sarkar
Tens of thousands of pilgrims from home and abroad thronged the bank of river TUrag yesterday to join the 45th Biswa Ijtema, the second largest Muslim congregation after the hajj.
The Biswa Ijtema, also called the World Congregation of Muslims, began with the delivery of religious sermons after the Fazr prayers.
The event mainly focuses on prayers and meditation seeking divine blessing from Allah and lasts for three days. The programme concludes with the Akheri Munajat, or final prayer on the last day 2
Dhaka Saturday January 31,2009
The three-day programme of Ijtema includes delivering boyans (sermons) on the fundamental issues of Tablig, solemnizing marriages without dowry, prayer for the spiritual adulation, exaltation and welfare of the Muslim community.
Indian spiritual leader and Islamic scholar Maulana Ismail Hossain delivered the opening sermon after the Fazr prayers. Maulana Noor Mohammad of Kakrail Mosque interpreted the sermon.
The number of overseas participants is incremental with 5,500 devotees from 90 out of 152 countries attending the festival this year while many others were expected to join before the Akheri Munajat.
Witnesses said over 12 lakh people from across the country already gathered the Ijtema venue and eight lakh more were expected to participate. In all 20 lakh devotees including one lakh women is going to be tire part of this bigoccasion.
The Tablig-e-Jamaat has been organising the gargantuan gathering since 1976. Several thousand devotees volunteered to prepare the five-square kilometre ground
to accommodate the devotees.
The government is also extending all-out supports and providing facilities for the smooth holding of the gathering.
As many as 44 special trains and a number of BRTC shuttle bus service have been arranged to ease the transportation.
But still die law enforcing agencies and volunteers had to struggles to tackle the situations especially traffic system and the law and order. Police and Rab official sources said they detained over 50 pickpockets from the area.
Eight deep tube-wells and an 11 kilometre long pipeline with the capacity of 50 lakh gallons of water everyday have been set up. A water tank with the capacity of storing one-lakh gallons of water has also been set up.
Seven Dailey bridges were set up over the Turag to facilitate movement of the devotees across the river. A special team of Army is keeping constant vigilance on law and order on the west site ofTurag.
The authorities also placed around 50 medical teams for providing with treatment facilities to the devotees free of cost.
Meanwhile, Abdul Aziz. 85,
a devotee from Jamalpur, died of cardiac arrest after the Fazr prayers.
When Aziz complained of chest pain, he was rushed to Tongi Health Complex where he died at around 6:30am.
Besides, a good number of devotees suffered from diarrhoea and cold-related diseases. Of them, two were admitted to the Tongi Health Complex and 10 others to the Dhaka Medical College Hospital, sources said.
The law-enforcers put up a three-tier security system including helicopter patrol and close-circuit television (CCTV) monitoring in and around the venue. They set up eight observation towers while two helicopters had been hovering over the area.
Police and Rab sources said the law enforcers had been frisking everyone at five checkpoints to avert any untoward incident
Around 11,000 security personnel from the police Rapid Action Battalion (Rab), Bangladesh Rifles (BDR), Armed Police Battalion (APB), ansars and several hundred members of various intelligence agencies have been put in place to ensure security.