Durga Puja ends with emersion

The five-day Sharadiya Durga Puja—the largest religious festival of Bangladesh’s Hindu community—concluded Thursday with the immersion of Goddess Durga’s idols across the country, marked by deep devotion, vibrant rituals, and solemn religious fervour. On Bijoya Dashami, the festival’s final day, colourful processions carrying elaborately crafted idols emerged from temples and puja pandals. Devotees chanted mantras, beat traditional drums (dhak-dhol), blew conch shells, and performed uludhoni (ceremonial ululation) before immersing the idols in nearby rivers, ponds, or other water bodies. Earlier in the day, married Hindu women dressed in traditional white saris with red borders took part in Sindur Khela—a symbolic ritual in which they first offered vermilion and sweets to the goddess, then playfully smeared each other’s faces with sindur,...