Hyderabad: The Haj Umrah Group Organizers Association of Telangana has declared that it will refund the ‘token amount’ or the full amount deposited by the persons who planned to undertake the Haj pilgrimage this year.
Masihuddin, joint secretary of The Haj Umrah Group Organizers Association asked the Haj tour organizers to return the money deposited by the people as soon as possible without any deductions. “All the Haj candidates who had deposited money with the Private Tour Operators (PTOs) for Haj 2020 should contact the agents and collect the money,” he said.
Earlier, the Indian government has announced that it will not send out pilgrims for Hajj this year. The govt also confirmed that the application money of the Indian pilgrims will be fully returned through direct transfer.
While speaking to media, Union Minister of Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said, “We have decided that Haj pilgrims from India will not be sent to Saudi Arabia for Hajj 2020.”
“The decision to not send pilgrims for Hajj has been taken after Saudi Arabia requested not to send pilgrims this year due to COVID-19 pandemic,” he added.
The Saudi government, for which the hajj is a major source of prestige and tourism, announced that no pilgrims from outside the kingdom could perform the hajj this year to prevent contagion.
Amidst CoronaVirus this year 2020 Saudi officials narrowed the order, saying that only about 1,000 pilgrims would be permitted this year — a tiny fraction of the 2.5 million who came last year.
The pilgrimage has been disrupted or restricted many times due to wars and disease but has faced no significant limits on attendance since the mid-1800s, when an epidemic of cholera and plague kept pilgrims away for a number of years.
Saudi Arabia, whose king bears the title “the custodian of the two holy mosques,” a reference to holy sites in Mecca and Medina, has never canceled the hajj since the modern kingdom was founded in 1932.
“This is the first time in the worldwide phenomenon of the hajj that it has been canceled in such a manner,” said Dr. Qadhi, the scholar. “The dynamics have changed. Five hundred years ago you could not ban it. There were no passports, no visas.”
The Mongol invasion of the Levant in the 13th century, for example, prevented pilgrims from reaching Mecca, he said, “but even then, the locals did it.”