People climb up a train at a railway station in Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, on Aug. 31, 2017, ahead of Eid-ul-Azha, the festival of animal sacrifice. (Xinhua/Salim Reza)
DHAKA, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- With merely a day remaining for the holy Eid-ul-Adha, a mad rush of home-goers continued at bus and launch terminals and railway stations in Bangladesh capital Dhaka on Thursday.
The home-goers seemed to ignore the hazards of journey to celebrate the festival of animal sacrifice with their families.
Bangladeshis on Sept. 2 will celebrate Eid-ul-Adha, which is also to be celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Prophet Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Prophet Ismael as an act of obedience to Allah.
The hustling and bustling Dhaka is now showing signs of tranquility in the coming days as people, with or even without seat-ensuring tickets, are gathering at the city's ferry terminals, railway and bus stations to join relatives in their village homes.
On Thursday morning, many were seen even trying to climb up trains' roofs in different railway stations in Dhaka to reach their village homes.
On Thursday afternoon, home-goers were also seen to climb on the roof of ferries which have already been packed with passengers at the city's Sadarghat terminal.
Musammat Shirin Shilla is going to Bogra district, 197 km northwest of Dhaka.
"It will take us the whole day to go home," said Shilla at a train station in Dhaka.
"I am going home to celebrate Eid with the family members of my father's-in-law house."
Mohammad Kabir Mia, a member of Bangladesh Army, said he was going home to spend Eid holidays with the family members.
"I will enjoy the Eid with my parents and family members."
Another Maswood Ahmed was seen busy trying to climb up an already jam packed train leaving Dhaka for Lalmonirhat district, 343 km northwest of Dhaka.
"We are very happy though the journey is troublesome."
Like previous years, sufferings of home-goers also worsened with long tailbacks on all highways connecting Dhaka because of a heavy rush of outbound buses and inbound trucks carrying sacrificial animals and shortage of ferries.
According to some estimates, millions of people leave Dhaka twice in a year on Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Adha.
Every Muslim who has the financial means needs to sacrifice animal and distributes the meat to the family and the poor. Millions of poor people in Bangladesh, who cannot afford to buy meat even once in a year, get the chance of eating meat this time every year.
State-owned transport bodies have started special Eid services to ply on different inter-district routes in addition to the regular services to meet the demand of the home-bound city dwellers.
To make the travel of the home-bound passengers easy, officials said additional forces have been deployed in Dhaka streets.
