Dhaka, Bangladesh - More than a million Muslims massed near Dhaka Friday for the biggest annual Islamic event after the hajj pilgrimage amid tight security following a wave of bombings by extremists, officials said.
Bangladeshi authorities assigned a record 22,000 troops to guard the three-day World Muslim Congregation - Biswa Ijtema - which began at Tongi near the capital, officials said.
“Over a million devotees from home and abroad have already arrived in the Ijtema and thousands more are pouring in from all corners of the country every hour,” Colonel Manikur Rahman, head of security of the congregation, told AFP.
Bangladesh has been on high alert since last August amid a wave of blasts and suicide attacks linked to a banned Islamic group, Jamayetul Mujahidden.
The group wants to impose strict Islamic law in the Muslim-majority country. At least 28 people, including four suicide bombers, have died in the attacks.
Security officers were checking everyone joining the congregation which is Islam’s second largest event after the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
“We want to ensure the safety of the people and foolproof security for the venue,” Rahman said
The Biswa Ijtema is organised by Tablig Jamaat, a group launched four decades ago in New Delhi, to encourage Muslims to follow Islamic teaching in their daily lives. It is considered a moderate and tolerant Islamic group.
Aside from security posts, authorities also set up observation towers and cameras to monitor people’s movements.
This year the government has joined hands with thousands of Tablig volunteers to set up a canopy stretching more than a kilometre (more than half a mile) along the bank of the river Turag.
Under the canopy and on jute rugs, devotees will spend three days praying and listening to sermons from Tablig emirs or leaders from all over the world.
“I can’t afford to go to Mecca so I attend the Biswa Ijtema every year. It’s like hajj to me,” said Abdur Rahman, a 70-year-old man who came from the southern Bangladesh island of Hatiya.
Secular Bangladesh, a nation of 140 million people, is the world’s third largest Muslim-majority country.