MUZAFFARABAD, Jan 11: The Pakistan Boy Scouts Association (PBSA) has allegedly slashed the due share of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Boy Scouts Association in the Haj services.

Sources told Dawn on Saturday that boy scouts of the nine associations of the country had been serving as Khuddamul Hujjaj in Saudi Arabia during the Haj season since 1981, under the rules framed by the National Council and Executive Committee of the PBSA.

According to the rules, every year each of the nine associations was allotted a quota on the basis of its census, to help the intending pilgrims in various Haji camps of the country. Of the total recommended boy scouts, 50 were selected to help Pakistani pilgrims in Saudi Arabia during Haj.

A quota of every association to serve in Saudi Arabia was fixed on the basis of the number of its scouts who attended duties in the country. Thus, the AJK boy scouts body had been getting three seats of the 50 since the implementation of the rules.

But last year PBSA National Secretary Qazi Zahoor ul Hassan reduced the AKJ quota from three seats to one, on the pretext that it was in accordance with the AJK’s quota in federal services.

This step caused great unrest among the AJK boy scouts who registered their protest at every forum and finally got one more seat for Saudi Arabia.

The AJK sources maintain that the Pakistan boy scouts body is an NGO working under the Presidential Ordinance No XLIII of 1959 and having its own rules and policies. Its operation has nothing to do with the services quota, the say.

The quota of Khuddamul Hujjaj is confirmed by a Haj selection committee, which comprises members of the National Council and Executive Committee and is headed by the PBSA chief commissioner (currently Federal Education Minister Zobaida Jalal).

However, the meeting of the selection body had not been held for the past two years ‘only to violate the policy prevalent for the past 16 years without any hindrance,’ the sources said.

In the current Haj season, the AKJ has been again allotted only one seat, although the number of Khuddamul Hujjaj from Pakistan was raised from 50 to 60.