Dhaka: City dwellers started leaving the city on Thursday afternoon for their respective village homes to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr with their near and dear ones.

Mostly government and semi-government employees along with their families left the capital as today was the last working day for them before Eid.

Eid-ul-Fitr, one of the biggest religious festivals of the Muslims, will be celebrated in the country either on June 26 (Monday) or June 27 (Tuesday) subject to the sighting of the Shawwal moon.

Around 70 lakh people are expected to leave the city for enjoying Eid at their village homes. They will travel by trains, buses and launches until Sunday to reach their destinations, reports news agency UNB.

Highway police sources said the Eid holidaymakers will suffer less on the national highways this time if the weather remains favourable as they will get a 3-4 holiday before Eid. Similarly, they expected hassle-free journeys on rail and river routes.

The sources said the homebound people faced almost no gridlock on the highways except Dhaka-Tangail one today.

The Dhaka-Tangail highway experienced a long tailback from the early hours as two vehicles went out of order in two separate places on the national highway, inflicting sufferings on the homebound people.

However, the situation improved from noon.

Traffic ran at a slow pace on the highway as work to turn it into four lanes is progressing but no tailback was reported till afternoon, said Police Super of Gazipur Highway Police Shafiqul Islam.

As Lailatul Qadr is being observed tonight (Thursday night), most of the holidaymakers will start leaving Dhaka after Fajr prayers, he said, adding that there will be a huge pressure on the highway from Friday morning.

Comilla Highway Police SP Paritosh Ghose also said though Thursday was the last office day for government employees, pressure of vehicles on the Dhaka Chittagong highway was relatively less till evening following the Lailatul Qadr.

Meanwhile, sources at Mohakhali, Gabtoli and Sayedabad bus terminals said most of the buses left the stations for respective destinations as per the schedule.
 Almost all trains also left Kamalapur Railway Station in time, said a railway officer.

He said only Khulna-bound Sundarban Express and Kishoreganj-bound Kishoreganj Express ran behind the schedule.