Puri carpenters decline to construct chariot for Hindus in Dhaka

Puri, Mar 25 (UNI) The ambitious plan of Hindus in Dhaka to reconstruct chariots for the Car festival has received a jolt as the traditional carpenters here expressed their inability to execute the work.

The carpenters who construct the three gigantic chariots for the Puri Car festival, refused the offer stating that the design of the proposed chariots in Dhaka was not familiar to them.

The Indian Council for Cultural Relations(ICCR) at Dhaka, in response to the request of the local Hindus to rebuild the chariot of Lord Vishnu of the Yasomadhav the temple, had approached the Jagannath Temple authority to spare temple carpenters.

Accordingly, the temple managing committee had instructed the chief carpenters of the three chariots who in turn agreed to the proposal.

Thakur Gopal Chandra Banik, leader of the Dhaka Hindu community, came here to take the carpenters to Dhaka.

But during the discussion between Banik and the carpenters it was revealed that the proposed single chariot would be built using steel and wood with height more than that of the Puri chariots. Two carpenters refused to go while the carpenter of the Subhadra chariot agreed to visit Dhaka to study the design and the materials used.

Mr Banik said they have a chariot used in the annual rath yatra of the Lord Yasomadhav which was destroyed by Pakistani soldiers during the 1971 war and since then, the annual rath yatra was abandoned.

But now, the Hindus in Bangladesh were making all efforts to resume the rath yatra for which the chariot has to be built and kept ready for the festival, he added.

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