GAIBANDHA, Oct 14, 2024 (BSS) - A 5-day long Sharadiya Durga Puja, the biggest religious festival of the Hindu Community here, ended in the district peacefully through the immersion of deities at different water bodies on Sunday.

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

Before removing the idols of Durga and others gods and goddess from the altars for immersion, the Hindu devotees 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 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 unpleasant incident during the immersion, said superintendent of police (SP) Md. Mosarrof Hossain.

A total of 557 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, he said.

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

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.