January 7, 2003	Tuesday	Ziqa’ad 3, 1423

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QUETTA, Jan 6: More than 5,000 intending Hajis, all from Balochistan, were refused permission to perform Haj this year merely because they applied through the group leaders with dubious credentials.

Originally, the PIA was scheduled to airlift some 19,000 Hajis from Quetta. But during the current Haj operations, some 14,000 Hajis will perform Haj.

The category of intending Hajis under the Sponsorship and Open Haj schemes are the main victims of the fraudulent tactics. Their dream was shattered because they could not get the promised ‘self accommodation’ through their agents.

The Saudi government, according to reliable sources, refused to give permission to the main agents as the Saudi authorities had blacklisted them in the past.

This time again they went to Saudi Arabia to procure accommodation for their clients, almost 5,000 intending Hajis from Balochistan

When it was revealed to the Saudi officials that the agents were the same old cheats and dishonest persons who defrauded the Hajis in the past and hoodwinked the Saudi officials, the Saudi government immediately cancelled the booking of accommodation for their 5,000 clients.

It caused a major upset in PIA plans to airlift the Hajis from Quetta to Jeddah and back during the Haj operations this season. Besides this, the government of Pakistan came under increasing pressure from the people in general for denying accommodation facilities to the intending Hajis and cancellation of their bookings merely because group leaders or the agents defrauded the innocent Muslims, or the intending guests of Allah, from performing Haj this season.

Normally, the innocent people make lump sum payment for the Haj leaving the entire process of documentation to the agents dealing Haj groups. They make arrangements for the sponsorship schemes, procure foreign exchange or bank draft from Dubai and other Gulf countries on behalf of the illiterate Hajis having no knowledge about the whole process.

The cheat, or the so-called group leader, make less payment to the government on the pretext that they would themselves make arrangement for their accommodation or self accommodation thus they save more than 30,000 per person. It was in the knowledge of the government of Saudi Arabia that blacklisted those cheats for being traders in Haj business. But the government of Pakistan where the fraud was committed had no knowledge.

It is no fault of the intending Hajis. The government of Pakistan must make alternative arrangements for them so that they, too, perform Haj this year.

The government should seek additional amount of money for procuring official accommodation using the good office of the Pakistan Haj Mission in Makkah and Madina.