Durga Puja days passed off peacefully across Tripura, immersion carnival “Mayer Goman” on Oct 4

The biggest festival of the state, Durga Puja passed off peacefully, barring a few stray incidents in separate places of the state during the last four days. But as predicted rain and thunderstorms, especially on the day of ‘Maha Nabami’ and ‘Maha Dashami’ spoil the festival spirit across Agartala and many other parts of the state.

As predicted by the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) Agartala station, all four days of Durga Puja have light to moderate rainfalls at intervals and Weather department has issued “Yellow” warnings for all eight districts of the state from September 29 to October 2nd (Day of Maha Dashami).

While, irrespective of castes and creeds, a huge number of people thronged puja pandals during the festival days and immersion of Goddess is still going on Friday also in different places of the state including capital city Agartala. Despite many apprehensions for bad weather conditions, people in large numbers were seen visiting pandals in groups. Women were seen enjoying the traditional ‘sindoor khela’ where they put vermillion on each other and seek blessings from the goddess.

No untoward incident was reported from the capital city that alone hosts over 750 puja, said police on Friday, barring some stray incidents, but on the day of ‘Maha Nabami’ (October 6) morning six inmates — five undertrial prisoners and one convicted person — escaped from Dharmanagar sub-jail of North Tripura district in the wee hours., which triggered statewide massive search by police to arrest all escaped prisoners. Later, police managed to arrest two among six escaped prisoners.

Though four days of Durga Puja passed off peacefully, reports said that few persons sustained injuries in several road mishaps due to reckless driving in separate incidents in different parts of the state.

Meanwhile, the great immersion carnival festival “Mayer Goman”, which will be held on October 4 (Saturday) by participation of all major community Durga Puja organizers of the capital city, the Information and Cultural Affairs (ICA) department is not leaving any stone unturned to make it a historic event for the state’s people.

Official sources said that all major clubs of the city will participate in the immersion carnival “Mayer Goman” on October 4th and the government is now making big structures in front of Agartala City Centre for the event.

Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha, who is also son of Late Makhan Saha – a well-known businessman of the yesteryears, joined the idol immersion of his family’s 107th Durga Puja at Dashamighat in Agartala on Thursday.

Speaking to the media persons during the immersion on Tuesday, Dr Saha said, “Maa (Durga) had come and now she is leaving. Naturally, there is a sense of pain. I wish the state a happy Bijoya Dashami (Vijaya Dashami). I believe Maa has blessed us all and we shall achieve our goal of ‘Ek Tripura, Srestha Tripura’ but we will need the cooperation and support of everyone to realise the dream.” Mayor of Agartala Municipal Corporation (AMC)  Dipak Majumder and others were also seen joining the immersion rituals at Dashamighat.

A duty officer from the Tripura Police headquarters informed that 2,983 Durga Puja organisers, including clubs and societies, had registered themselves with the authorities apart from the traditional pujas of the families.

The number of Durga Pujas have seen a 10 percent spike this year in comparison to last year’s Puja.

About 1000 organisers have already immersed their idols in different parts of the state till Friday afternoon. No accident or any untoward incident was reported till the time of filing this report.