Ishwardi's Eid-day market for donated Qurbani meat sells at Tk 500-550 a kg

On the afternoon of Thursday, 28 May 2026, the day of Eid-ul-Azha, a short-lived market for donated Qurbani meat formed once again in the town of Ishwardi in Pabna district, as it had in earlier years. The buying and selling took place at several spots around the town's Rail Gate, at Fakirer Bottola on Station Road and around the railway station, Jagonews24 reported the next morning. Meat changed hands at Tk 500 to Tk 550 a kilogram, and some sellers said bargaining ran between Tk 450 and Tk 550.

The meat on sale was meat that the sellers had been given from the animals sacrificed in the town that day. Some of them had worked as butchers for a day and brought the share of meat they had received for that work. The buyers, the report said, were people who could not afford a sacrifice of their own, or who could not buy meat at the higher prices charged in the shops.

Anisur Rahman had come to the Rail Gate to sell meat. He told the reporter that he had worked as a butcher all day and had been given three kilograms of meat for it. He planned to sell two kilograms and take the remaining kilogram home, and he hoped to get Tk 1,200 for the two kilograms.

Another man who had worked as a butcher, Atiar Rahman, said he had brought three kilograms of meat and sold it at Tk 550 a kilogram. If he had bargained harder, he said, he might have got another Tk 50 a kilogram.

At Fakirer Bottola on Station Road, a woman named Asiya Begum had come to sell meat she had been given. She said she had collected about five kilograms during the day and had nowhere to keep that much. She had kept two kilograms for her family to eat and brought the other three to sell, and she said buyers and sellers were settling on prices between Tk 450 and Tk 550 a kilogram.

Their accounts show the two routes by which meat reached the market: the meat that seasonal butchers received as payment for a day's slaughtering and cutting, and the shares that households gave to people who came to their doors on Eid day. In both cases the sellers kept part of the meat for their own families and sold the rest the same afternoon.

An auto-rickshaw driver, also named Anisur Rahman, had come to the market to buy. He told Jagonews24 that meat cost Tk 750 a kilogram in the shops, while at this market it could be bought for Tk 450 to Tk 550 a kilogram, so he had come to buy two kilograms.

Local resident Alamgir Hossain said that for several years donated Qurbani meat had been bought and sold on the afternoon of Eid day around the Rail Gate, Fakirer Bottola and the railway station. Both the buyers and the sellers at the market were poor people, he said, and both sides gained something from the trade.

Altab Hossain, who lives on Station Road, said the trade went on for two to three hours on Eid day at several places in the town. A number of seasonal butchers sold meat there. People who live by begging also sold the meat they had been given, because they had no refrigerator or any other way to store it, while low-income families benefited from being able to buy meat somewhat more cheaply, he said.

All three spots named in the report lie close to the railway, which has shaped Ishwardi for more than a century. According to Banglapedia, the national encyclopedia of Bangladesh, the broad gauge lines from Bheramara to Ishwardi and from Ishwardi to Abdulpur were doubled in 1915 and 1932 respectively. The 80-kilometre Ishwardi-Sirajganj section, which opened as a private venture in 1915-16, was bought by the government on 1 October 1944.

Banglapedia describes the Parbatipur-Ishwardi-Khulna broad gauge section as one on which trains run at up to 95 kilometres an hour, and it records the 245-kilometre Parbatipur-Ishwardi-Jamtoil broad gauge track that links the western end of the Jamuna bridge. Its entry on Ishwardi upazila lists 16 kilometres of railway, two railway hospitals and the Bangladesh Railway Government Girls' High School, founded in 1918, among the upazila's facilities and institutions.

Rail Gate, Station Road and the station square are the places that the residents quoted by Jagonews24 named as the home of the Eid-day meat trade over recent years, with the trade lasting only a few hours on the afternoon of Eid.

Bangladesh celebrated Eid-ul-Azha on 28 May 2026. The National Moon Sighting Committee met at the Islamic Foundation office at Baitul Mukarram on the evening of Monday, 18 May, and officials confirmed that the crescent moon of Zil Hajj had been seen in the country, so the month began on Tuesday, 19 May, bdnews24 and UNB reported. The government declared a seven-day holiday from 25 to 31 May. In Saudi Arabia the moon had been sighted on Sunday and Eid was set for 27 May; Bangladesh traditionally observes the festival a day after Saudi Arabia, bdnews24 noted.

Banglapedia describes Eid-ul-Azha as one of the two main Muslim religious festivals, known in Bangladesh as Kurbanir Eid or Bakra Eid. It is observed on the 10th of Zil Hajj, and the sacrifice can also be offered on the following day and, according to some, on the third day. Animals offered for sacrifice must be of a specific age and free from certain defects. A camel, cow or buffalo can be sacrificed in the names of seven people, while a goat or a sheep is sacrificed in the name of one person. In Bangladesh, cows, goats and buffaloes are usually sacrificed.

The distribution of the meat is part of the custom. According to Banglapedia, one third of the meat of the sacrificed animal is kept by the owner, one third is given to relatives, and the rest is distributed among the poor; the hide, or the money from its sale, is to be given to the poor or to poor students of madrasas and orphanages. UNB, reporting the moon sighting, described the festival as marked by special prayers, animal sacrifices and the distribution of meat to the poor and needy.

It was from that last share, handed out at the door on Eid day, and from the meat paid to day butchers, that the Ishwardi market drew its supply, according to the sellers and residents who spoke to Jagonews24.

At a press conference at the Secretariat on 3 May 2026, the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock said that more than 1.24 crore (12.4 million) cattle, buffaloes, goats and sheep had been prepared across the country for the coming Eid, that there was no need to import animals, and that the leases of cattle markets along the border had been stopped in advance, BSS reported. More than 3,600 cattle markets were to be held across the country, 27 of them in Dhaka: 16 under the Dhaka North City Corporation and 11 under Dhaka South.

The ministry also said that, as in the past, no permission would be given to import injections for fattening cattle, that teams of specialist veterinarians under the Department of Livestock Services would be at every market to treat animals that fell ill, and that no market levy would be charged on animals bought and sold online.

In Pabna district, the district livestock office said there was no shortage of sacrificial animals in 2026 and that production had exceeded demand, Deshrupantor reported on 26 May. According to the district livestock officer, farms and households in the district had prepared a total of 6.53 lakh animals for sacrifice, against a local demand of 3,36,572. The surplus of more than about three lakh animals was being sent to markets in Dhaka, Chattogram and other districts. The district had 25 approved cattle markets, and 25 medical teams were on duty to treat sick animals on the spot.

The same report described crowded markets in the last days before Eid, including Hajirhat on the edge of Pabna town, Pushpapara Hat at Ataikula, Ishwardi's Aranghola Hat, Karamja Hat in Santhia, Sharatnagar Hat in Bhangura, Amritakunda in Chatmohar and Chatur Hat in Bera. Medium and small cattle were in the greatest demand. Some buyers said prices were higher than the year before, while farmers blamed the steep rise in the cost of grass, bran, oil cake and other feed.

For the year before, the Department of Livestock Services counted 91,36,734 animals sacrificed at Eid-ul-Azha 2025: 47,05,106 cattle and buffaloes, 44,30,668 goats and sheep, and 960 other animals such as camels and dumbas, Prothom Alo reported on 10 June 2025. The count was made by stratified random sampling, with a sample of at least 1 percent taken from three villages, small, medium and large, in every upazila. Rajshahi division, which includes Pabna, had the most sacrifices of any division, 23,24,971. The department's count for 2024 had been 1,04,08,918, and the ministry said 33,10,603 animals brought for Qurbani went unsold in 2025.

Pabna is also home to one of the country's recognised local cattle types. Banglapedia lists Pabna and Sirajganj among the areas where the best local cattle of Bangladesh are found, and names Pabna Cattle, a medium-sized type, among the improved indigenous varieties, with a Pabna cow producing 3 to 5 litres of milk a day.

Ishwardi is not the only place where such a market appears on Eid day. On the afternoon of Eid-ul-Azha on 29 June 2023, The Daily Star's Bengali edition found a crowd at an open-air market for collected Qurbani meat in front of the Shia mosque in Mohammadpur, Dhaka. Low-income people collect the meat that those who sacrifice give away, the paper wrote, and many sell it on the open market out of financial need, or because they have no place to store it. Some had collected 10 kilograms, some five.

Prices there depended on quality, buyers and sellers told the paper: lower-quality meat mixed with bone and head meat sold for Tk 400 a kilogram, somewhat better meat for Tk 500, and fresh meat for Tk 800. One buyer said that although meat cost Tk 800 a kilogram in the market as well, no meat was available anywhere else on Eid day. A trader said he had paid collectors Tk 680 to Tk 700 a kilogram for good meat.

On 7 June 2025, bdnews24 reported a busy donated-meat market in Cumilla city, at the Kandirpar Pubali Chattar and Liberty Mor, which had started after the sacrifices. The buyers were mainly low-income people and owners of small hotels, and buyers and sellers said meat was selling at an average of Tk 600 a kilogram. Most sellers at such markets were destitute people or beggars, the report said, and the meat was often a mixture from several animals. A man who had worked as a butcher told the paper that meat sold by butchers was clean and fetched more, while meat collected from house to house was mixed and sold for less. Many people also said they had received less donated meat that year than before.

A resident quoted in the same report said that, following the rules of Qurbani, households give the donated share of meat to destitute people with charitable intent, and that whether those who receive it take it home or sell it is their own decision.

The price gap that drew buyers to Ishwardi was the one the auto-rickshaw driver described: Tk 750 a kilogram in the shops, against Tk 450 to Tk 550 at the Eid-day market, where he had come to buy two kilograms.

The government has at times sold beef below the market price to help families on low incomes. For Ramadan 2025, the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock ran a mobile sales programme from the first to the 28th day of Ramadan, selling beef at Tk 650 a kilogram, dressed broiler chicken at Tk 250 a kilogram, pasteurised milk at Tk 80 a litre and eggs at Tk 114 a dozen at 25 locations in Dhaka, with broiler chicken, eggs, milk, beef and mutton offered across the country, Jugantor reported on 17 February 2025.

In Pabna in 2026, a buyer at a cattle market told Deshrupantor that a cow of a size that had cost Tk 1,50,000 the year before now cost Tk 1,60,000 to Tk 1,70,000, while a farmer said that the cost of feed had risen so much that the price of animals could not be called high in proportion.

Ishwardi is an upazila of Pabna district in Rajshahi division. Banglapedia gives its area as 250.89 square kilometres. It is bounded by Lalpur and Baraigram upazilas to the north, Kushtia Sadar and Mirpur upazilas and the Ganges (Padma) to the south, Pabna Sadar and Atgharia to the east, and Bheramara upazila and the Ganges to the west. Its main rivers are the Padma and the Kamala, and Pati Beel is a notable wetland.

The 2011 census counted 3,13,932 people in the upazila. It has one municipality, seven unions, 98 mouzas and 126 villages; the municipality covers 19.59 square kilometres in nine wards. Ishwardi thana was formed in 1949 and became an upazila in 1983. Pabna district itself, formed in 1832, covers 2,376.13 square kilometres in nine upazilas and had 25,23,179 people in the 2011 census.

Ishwardi is known for its bridges and research centres. The Hardinge Bridge, a steel railway bridge 1.8 kilometres long, crosses the Ganges at Sara between Paksey and Bheramara stations; its construction began in 1910 and was finished in 1912, and Lord Hardinge opened it on 4 March 1915. Banglapedia lists the Lalan Shah Setu, the Sugarcane Research Centre, the Regional Agricultural Research Centre and a pulses research centre among the upazila's landmarks.

Farming and trade carry the local economy. Banglapedia gives agriculture as the main source of income for 33.63 percent of households and commerce for 20.90 percent, with transport and communication at 5.26 percent; 57.04 percent of households own no farmland. The main crops are paddy, wheat, sugarcane, betel leaf, potato, onion and vegetables, and the main exports include betel leaf, onion, papaya, vegetables, rice, sugarcane molasses, sugar, cement and flour. The upazila has 170 dairies, 28 poultry farms and 12 fisheries, and 30 hats and bazars, among them Ishwardi Bazar, Arancola (Aranghola) Hat and Muladuli Hat.

The residents' explanation for the market, that people who live by begging had no refrigerator or other way to store the meat they were given, points to a food-safety question for everyone who handled meat that day. The World Health Organization's Five Keys to Safer Food, published in 2006 as its basic guidance for households and food handlers, sets out five steps:

• Keep clean.
• Separate raw and cooked food.
• Cook thoroughly.
• Keep food at safe temperatures.
• Use safe water and raw materials.

For anyone buying meat at an open-air market on Eid afternoon, those keys mean keeping the raw meat apart from cooked food, keeping it at a safe temperature and cooking it thoroughly. Buyers with questions about meat they have bought can ask the upazila livestock office or the local food safety officer.

Photo: S.M.M. Musabbir Uddin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). The top picture shows Qurbani meat, as background.

Sources: Jagonews24, bdnews24, United News of Bangladesh (UNB), Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS), Deshrupantor, Prothom Alo, The Daily Star (Bengali edition), Jugantor, Banglapedia, World Health Organization.