She came to world at the invocation and supplication of Hindu devotees. After spending a few days with them, goddess Durga along with her four children yesterday set off for Kailash, her husband's abode.

Wishing to have Durga among themselves next year, devotees bade her farewell by immersing her idols in water bodies across the country.

With this, the biggest religious festival of the Hindus came to an end.

For devotees, the day began with Dashami Puja and ended with immersion of idols, said Nirmal Kumar Chatterjee, joint secretary of Bangladesh Puja Udjapan Parishad.

“Women offer vermillion to the Durga and preserve some to use it until next Dashami,” he said.

Later, they smear each other with vermillion.

Durga is the most widely venerated deity in Hinduism. She is the Mother of the universe, a personification of tender care, love and beauty.

Through worshipping her, devotees express a firm conviction that all that is bad on earth would be annihilated and it would be turned into heaven.

Durga Puja was celebrated this year at 29,395 permanent and temporary puja mandaps across the country, including 229 in the capital.

Thousands of devotees in the capital marched with truck processions, carrying idols of the Durga, towards nearby rivers for immersion.

Some 50 trucks reached near Palashi in the afternoon. Around 4:00pm, they started for Wais Ghat to immerse the idols in the Buriganga.

“Soon after reaching Wais Ghat around 5:10pm, we began immersing idols,” Nirmal said, adding that immersion of idols would be completed by 9:00pm.

Some idols from Kalabagan, Banani and Gulshan were immersed in the Turag river, he said.

Devotees in Chittagong and Cox's Bazar thronged different sea beaches and rivers to see the immersion of idols, report our correspondents.