All the necessary preparations to hold the country’s biggest Eid congregation at Sholakia Eidgah in Kishoreganj have been completed, district deputy commissioner Md Azimuddin Bishwas said yesterday.
The district administration has also made arrangements to ensure sanitation and adequate water supply, he added.
Muslims from all parts of the country as well as abroad have started arriving in Kishoreganj some days ahead of Eid to attend the congregation at Sholakia Eidgah, said Azimuddin, who is also the president of the executive committee of Sholakia Eidgah.
Those coming from abroad to attend the Eid prayers here include those from Saudi Arabia, Turkey, India, Pakistan and England.
Adequate police forces will be deployed in and around Sholakia Eidgah to ensure security, SP (Kishoreganj) Anwar Hossain Khan said.
Chairman of Islahul Muslimeen Council and president of Jamaat-e-Ulema, Maulana Md. Fariduddin Masud, is scheduled to conduct the Eid Jamaat this year.
A special munajat will be offered as well to seek divine blessings for peace, development and welfare of the people of the country as well as Muslim Ummah.
The Eidgah Steering Committee, local municipality, district administration and different government organisations will jointly organise the congregation.
The number of people arriving for the congregation has been increasing every year. The district administration is anticipating a gathering of over three lakh people at the largest Eidgah of the subcontinent.
The government will run special train services to cater to those wishing to travel to Kishoreganj for the Sholakia congregation, which will be covered live by different TV channels. Three special trains will operate on Bhairab-Kishoreganj and Kishoreganj-Mymensingh routes to facilitate the movement of Sholakia-bound Muslim devotees.
The first Eid congregation on this ground was held in 1828 when a local dewan called Sayeed Ahmed (R) of Haibatnagar Dewan Bari of the town conducted an Eid jamaat on one of the fields of his own “taluk” (revenue zone) on the bank of the Narsunda river.
The name Sholakia comes from Shoa Lakh, meaning one-lakh-twenty-five-thousand, which was the number of people that had come to offer Eid-ul-Azha prayers at the Eidgah for the first time. This later came to be known in history as Sholakia Eidgah.
The surrounding area was also named Sholakia afterwards. In 1950, another dewan, Mannan Dad Khan, had donated 4.35 acres of land for the Eidgah. According to sources, the present Eidgah now comprises around seven acres of land.
There are about 265 rows, each of which can accommodate 600 devotees. So the congregation field can accommodate some 159,000 devotees at a time. However, more than three lakh devotees can offer their prayers here by using the nearby roads, open spaces and courtyards of surrounding houses.
Sholakia Eidgah has an executive committee of 51 members, with the deputy commissioner being its ex-officio president.
Three sets of gunshots will give the countdown to the start of prayers. A shotgun will be fired thrice five minutes before the start, twice before three minutes and once at the start of the final minute.
Locals alleged that the ground lacks sufficient facilities to accommodate the large number of devotees who come to attend the congregation from long distances.