Organisers claim 400,000 attended Eid congregation at Dinajpur

Organisers at Dinajpur’s Gor-e-Shaheed Maidan claim nearly 400,000 devotees came to attend Eid prayers at the location on Monday.

Though the grounds have previously held various smaller Eid congregations, this is the first large congregation to attend Eid prayers at the location since renovations.

Organisers had previously stated that renovations on the location had expanded the Eidgah grounds to 22 acres and increased its capacity to 500,000 persons.

If the number attending Eid prayers was confirmed, it would surpass the congregation at Sholakia as Bangladesh’s largest Eid congregation.

Nearly 400,000 devotees had attended the Eid ul-Fitr jamaat at the grounds at 9am on Monday, said the organisation committee spokesperson and Dinajpur Municipal Mayor Syed Jahangir Alam.

“Almost 400,000 devotees took part in the Eid prayers across the grounds,” he told bdnews24.com.

Currently the largest Eid prayer congregation in Bangladesh is considered to be the one held at Kishoreganj’s Sholakia. The name ‘Sholakia’ itself is drawn from a 1828 research study that claimed 115,000 devotees (or 'shoa ek lakh') had attended Eid prayers in the area that year.

In recent years the Sholakia grounds and other nearby fields have seen congregations as large as 250,000 to 300,000.

Abdullah, who attended the Dinajpur prayers this year and had previously attended the congregation in Sholakia told bdnews24.com that he believed the crowd in Dinajpur was much larger.

It would be a great honour to draw the largest Eid congregation in the country, Imam Moulana Shamsul Alam Kashemi said.