ISLAMABAD, June 17: Religious Affairs Minister Mohammad Ejazul Haq has said that the ban will remain in place on the unmarried and jobless persons below the age of 40 years to perform umra.

Talking to journalists on Saturday at the Parliament House, the minister said he had held detailed discussions with officials of the ministry of Haj of Saudi Arabia during his recent visit there.

“I recommended increase in Haj quota for Pakistani pilgrims as our population is growing. About 160,000 intending pilgrims will be sent this year,” he said.

He said it was decided in a meeting that a schedule would be fixed for Rami in order to avert any mishap and special training would be given to pilgrims. Half of Pakistani pilgrims would perform Rami on Zilhaj 12 and the remaining half on the following day.

He said the Saudi government had complained that over 100,000 Pakistanis had disappeared in Saudi Arabia for employment after going there for performing umra.

Riyadh had decided that any Saudi citizen who offered job to such a Pakistani would be punished, he said.

He said the Saudi authorities had banned jobless and unmarried Pakistanis below 40 years of age to perform umra.

He said the Saudi government has sought the list of the 82 umra companies so that they could be registered there and their working monitored.

He said Haj passports would gradually be replaced by machine-readable ones.

He said the religious affairs ministry had sent a schedule to the law ministry to register umra operators so that action could be taken against them if they helped people stay in Saudi Arabia illegally.—Online