Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal on Thursday requested the country’s Hindu community to keep the number of Puja mandaps limited considering security issues.
He said this while replying to a question from journalists after a meeting on the overall security issue marking the Durga Puja, the largest religious festival of the Hindu community, at the Secretariat in Dhaka.
The home minister said the number of Puja mandaps is increasing every year in the country and he had information of more mandaps to be installed this year compared to the previous year.
“We requested them (Hindu community) to keep the number of Puja mandaps limited so that this number does not exceed compared to the last year,” he said.
The number of Puja mandaps was 32,168 last year in the country and this year the number will be 32,407, he said.
There is a matter of security once the number of Puja mandaps increases, the home minister said.
The Puja mandaps will remain under surveillance of the law enforcing agencies and the Puja committees have been asked to deploy volunteers at each mandap, he said, adding that the Puja will be celebrated from October 21-24.
Asaduzzaman said 200,000 Ansar members will remain deployed at the mandaps and directives have been given to take special care instantly once calls from national emergency hotline services 999 would come.
The Puja committees have been asked to set up IP cameras along with CCTV cameras at the mandaps, he said, adding that directives were given for special surveillance so that rumours cannot be spread from Facebook and YouTube during the festival.
Moreover, there will be control rooms at police headquarters and all the districts to avoid unexpected incidents, he added.
Replying to another question, Asaduzzaman said they (Home Ministry) will take time to take over NID services from the Election Commission.
He also said that corrections of the NIDs and making new NIDs will continue under the authorities concerned until the ministry takes the charge fully.
