Three-day Muslim pilgrimage begins in Bangladesh

Jan 22, 2010, 12:20 GMT

Dhaka - Thousands of devotees gathered Friday on the bank Bangladesh's Turag river for mass prayers on the first day of the world's second-largest Muslim congregation after the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

The three-day annual Ijtema congregation organized by the international Tabligh Jamaat movement, began in Tongi, 30 kilometres north of Dhaka, with a sermon after the morning prayers.

The event, which focuses on prayer, meditation and lectures from Muslim scholars is expected to be attended by about 3 million devotees from across the Muslim world.

President Zillur Rahman and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed in separate messages wished the Islamic gathering success.

The lectures by scholars from Pakistan and India are instantly interpreted into a number of languages for the international participants including Bangla, English, Arabic, Tamil and Chinese.

The Ijtema is to conclude Sunday with another mass prayer event.

The government has beefed up security around the venue where some 3 million people gather every year to seek divine blessings, Mahfuzul Haq Nuruzzaman, police chief of the area, told reporters.

He said some 18,000 security personnel from different agencies and several hundred plainclothes law enforcers have been deployed in and around the 0.65-square-kilometre venue as part of multi-tier security measures to avert any possible subversive activities.