Roundup: Bangladesh's huge exodus from cities ahead of Eid-ul-Aza gets into full swing
Xinhua, September 10, 2016 Adjust font size:
With merely two days remaining for the holy Eid-ul-Azha, millions of Bangladeshis, braving every conceivable discomfort on creaky and congested transport, are flocking to village homes to celebrate one of the biggest religious festivals with their dear ones.
Bangladeshis on Sept. 13 will celebrate Eid-ul-Azha, or the festival of animal sacrifice, which is also to be celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Prophet Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Prophet Ismael as an act of obedience to Allah .
The Bangladeshi government has already announced a six-day Eid vacation.
The hustling and bustling Dhaka is now showing signs of tranquility in the coming days as people, with or even without seat-ensuring tickets, are gathering at the city's ferry terminals, railway and bus stations to join relatives in their village homes.
On Saturday morning, many were seen even trying to climb up a train's roof at Dhaka's central Kamalapur Railway Station to reach their village homes.
Also on Saturday afternoon, home-goers were also seen to climb on the roof of ferries which have already been packed with passengers at the city's Sadarghat terminal.
Like previous years, sufferings of home-goers also worsened with long tailbacks on all highways connecting Dhaka because of a heavy rush of outbound buses and inbound trucks carrying sacrificial animals and shortage of ferries.
Every Muslim who has the financial means need to sacrifice animal and distribute the meat to family and the poor. Millions of poor people in Bangladesh, who cannot afford to buy meat even once in a year, get the chance of eating meat this time every year.
State-owned transport bodies have started special Eid services to ply on different inter-district routes in addition to the regular services to meet the demand of the home-bound city dwellers.
To make the travel of the home-bound passengers easy, officials said additional forces have been deployed in Dhaka streets. Enditem