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Adieu to Durga

Hindus end their biggest puja with immersion of idols

Staff Correspondent
The five-day celebration of Durga Puja, the biggest religious festival of the Hindus, ended yesterday with the immersion of the deities' idols across the country.
Bijoya Dashami, the final day of the festivities reaffirms peace and harmony in the society. This year, the Hindus celebrated puja in around 28,000 mandaps.
Thousands of devotees bade a solemn farewell to their deity Durga and her children Lakshmi, Saraswati, Kartik and Ganesh by immersing their idols in water.
“We are sad now but we hope she will return next year and bestow her blessings upon us,” said Protik Chakrobarti, a student of Dhaka University.
Since morning, devotees of all ages thronged the mandaps, visited relatives and friends and shared sweets among themselves.
Later, they joined the idol-immersion procession at Palashi intersection, near Dhakerswari Temple around 4:00pm and marched towards the river while dancing to the beating drums or dholoks.
Around 100 trucks carrying ornate idols of the goddesses joined the parade which halted at Waizghat on the river Buriganga around 6:00pm.
Nirmol Chatterjee, joint secretary of Mahanagar Sarbojanin Puja Committee, said most of the idols of the capital's 199 mandaps were submerged into the Buriganga andTurag rivers.
In Chittagong, Hindu devotees celebrated the festival
in 250 mandaps, this year. Thousands of devotees bade a tearful goodbye to goddess and her children by immersing their idols into the sea and Karnaphuli River.
In order to ensure a peaceful celebration of the festival, security measures were beefed up at puja mandaps and the places of immersion of idols in the capital and elsewhere in the country.
Durga Puja, the annual Hindu festival also known as Sharadiya (autumnal) Durga Utsav, is the worship of "Shakti" (divine force) embodied in the goddess Durga. It symbolises the battle between good and evil where the dark forces eventually succumb to that of the divine.
On the occasion, the state-run and private television stations and radios aired special programmes.
Prashanta Kumar Roy, an official of Ain O Shalish Kendra, expressed his satisfaction over the peaceful
celebration of the puja across the country this year.
"Mother Durga came among us to establish peace and welfare in the society and I hope it will continue to exist with her blessings," he said.