Agartala city witnessed huge crowd on Puja days, spirit still in full swing on Dashami night

Amidst high security arrangements across the state for peaceful observance of the festivities of Durga Puja, so far, no untoward incident has been reported from any part of Tripura till Sunday night barring some stray incidents.

Large number of devotees thronged major puja pandals across Agartala since the day of ‘Maha Shasti’. Similar scenes were noticed on the day of ‘Maha Saptami’, ‘Maha Asthami’, ‘Maha Nabami’ and the day of Viajaya Dashami.

Police sources said that this year as per available information Durga Puja is likely to be celebrated at 2626 places or pandals in the entire state, this includes above 702 Durga pujas in West Tripura district including 512 pujas in Agartala.

Police sources added that around 300 less community Durga Puja are being organized in comparison to last year, which was about 2900 Pujas across Tripura.

The decreases of community Durga Pujas are seen from Dhalai district, specially the violence affected Gandacherra subdivision to witness very less community Puja.

Sources said that many areas devastated by flood wreck havoc in last month have also less community Durga Puja, specially in South Tripura and Gomati district.

Like previous years, elaborate Police arrangements have been made in the state to ensure peaceful celebration of the festival.

However, on the auspicious day of ‘Maha Saptami' on Thursday  and ‘Maha Asthami’ on Friday, ‘Maha Nabami’ on Saturday , the worship of Goddess Durga was performed with religious pomp and gaiety.

As per tradition a huge crowd of pandal hoppers took to the streets of Agartala and areas around it from evening to have a glimpse of images of ‘Devi Durga’, her retinue and the decoration in the pandal. Apart from the city dwellers many people had come from sub divisional and district towns as also from neighbouring districts of Assam and clandestinely from Bangladesh also. The street vendors dealing in fast food made big and fast bucks by feeding their products to ‘Puja’ revellers.

Most of the ‘Puja’ revellers and pandal hoppers visit famous Agartala pandals and most of the pandals are based on themes.

While, on the day of Vijaya Dashami on Sunday huge crowd of pandal hoppers also took to the streets of Agartala  to visit pandals and also for glimpses of Dashami at Dashamighat area before the immersion carnival ‘Mayer Goman’ on Monday.