Tight security planned for Durga Puja
In the wake of recent terrorist attacks in the country, law enforcers and Hindu community people are planning to ensure tight security measures before and during the Durga Puja, the biggest religious festival of the Hindus.
Puja organisers will hold several meetings with the home minister, law enforcers, local representatives and other stakeholders to chalk out security plans both for urban and rural areas.
Bangladesh Puja Udjapan Parishad will sit with Inspector General of Police AKM Shahidul Hoque at police headquarters today where most of the deputy inspector generals of police and other senior police officials will be present.
Hindu leaders will hold a meeting with Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal at the ministry's conference room tomorrow. Top officials of different law enforcement and intelligence agencies will join the meeting.
District-level Hindu community leaders will sit with the superintendents of police of their districts within the next one or two days to finalise the security plans.
Central-level leaders of the community have asked the grassroots to keep in touch with local lawmakers, union parishad chairmen or municipality mayors to get their cooperation for holding the puja peacefully.
Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, AKM Shahidur Rahman, deputy inspector general (media and planning) at the police headquarters, said, “We will chalk out a detailed plan of action at tomorrow's [Monday] meeting.”
The five-day Durga Puja will begin on October 7.
Puja will be arranged at 29,395 temples and mandaps across the country this year, which is 324 more than that of last year, say leaders of Bangladesh Puja Udjapan Parishad.
“As Durga Puja is going to be held amid a different situation following some terrorist attacks, we are in a little bit of doubt. But we hope our law enforcers will provide us sufficient security measures,” said Taposh Kumar Pal, general secretary of the parishad.
"In these meetings, we will discuss how security can be beefed up and place our recommendations in this regard,” he told The Daily Star yesterday.
This year, Hindu leaders are putting emphasis on deploying volunteers by the puja organisers at each temple. They will discharge their duties as guards along with regular law enforcers.
"It will not be wise to sit idle giving all the responsibilities to the police. We will have to deploy sufficient numbers of volunteers to monitor the temples round the clock,” said Rana Dasgupta, general secretary of Hindu-Buddhist-Christian Oikya Parishad.
Authorities of Dhakeswari National Temple would deploy around 50 volunteers, and the volunteers would be provided identity cards. They would patrol the temple and assist law enforcers in maintaining order, said Taposh.
Bangladesh Puja Udjapan Parishad has recently issued some security directives to all the puja organisers across the country.
As per the instructions, organisers will have to install either temporary or permanent fence around the temple and there should be separate entrances and exits for male and female devotees.
Nowadays, different kinds of music instruments are being used at temples. High- volume music may affect security. No one will be able to hear anything, if any untoward incident occurs inside temples. So, use of such music instruments must be on a limited scale, says Rana Dasgupta.
A central-level monitoring cell of the puja udjapan parishad has already been set up to coordinate overall activities of puja.
The Hindus at the grassroots have been requested to communicate with the central monitoring cell through the following mobile numbers in case of any emergency or any untoward situation.
The mobile numbers are: 01619802405, 01711361601 and 01711697099.