Staff Reporter :Accusing the Secretary of the Religious Affairs Ministry and the Director of Ashkona Hajj Office of inefficiency, the Hajj Agencies Association of Bangladesh (HAAB) has demanded their removal from their office within 24 hours, holding them responsible for Hajj flights cancellation crisis.Otherwise the HAAB, the apex body of the 1400 Hajj Agencies across the country, will be compelled to go for tougher programme to realize their five point demands, including cancellation of collecting Tk 4,025 per head for city check-in activities and completion of procedures for sending 4,800 government quota pilgrims, to private management.They placed the demands while addressing a press briefing on Saturday at its Nayapaltan office in the city. HAAB Vice-President Farid Ahmed Mozumdar, Secretary General Shaikh Abdullah, Public Relations Secretary Sayem Mohammed Hasan and member HM Hanjala were also present in the press briefing, among others.Earlier, the HAAB executive committee held an emergency meeting with its members and senior leaders at the same venue with its President Mohammad Ibrahim Bahar in the chair.In the briefing, HAAB President Ibrahim Bahar accused the two officials of not giving approvals to the documents of delivery order (DO) in due time. That is why the entire process of making passenger’s fight lists has been delayed. As a result, Biman had to cancel 15 to 16 Hajj flights.Ibrahim Bahar alleged, Director (Hajj) Abu Saleh Mostafa Kamal comes to his office late at night and does not give his approval to any of the documents for replacement of pilgrims, who are unable to perform Hajj this year due to death or physical unfitness and does not pay Tk 20,000 each.Besides, HAAB President claimed that “Secretary of Religious Affairs Ministry Abdul Jalil was totally indifferent to the newly E-Hajj system.” They have also urged the Prime Minister to intervene to resolve the issues as soon as possible or else the fate of around 25,000 Bangladeshi pilgrims will be uncertain.Disclosing the information of Saudi Arabia’s further allocation of 11,000 extra quotas of pilgrims for Bangladesh, Ibrahim Bahar said that the country has already decided to allocate the quota for Bangladesh. But it will be officially announced after completion of sending earlier allocated 1,01,758 pilgrims.The two officials are taking long time to complete the process deliberately, as they do not want to take any pressure more. It may cause hamper to send the 11,000 pilgrims to Saudi Arabia for performing Hajj this year from the waiting list of pre-registered pilgrims.On August 18, at an inter-ministerial meeting on ‘Fair and Smooth Hajj Management’, it was told that visas of 69,451 pilgrims have already been processed and a total of 41,840 pilgrims had left Dhaka so far. Till date, around 52,000 pilgrims have flown to Saudi Arabia.A total of 1,01,758 Bangladeshis are expected to perform Hajj this year.On the other hand, a section of Hajj Agencies also informed that they were going to host a press conference today at 11am on Sunday in Dhaka Reporters Unity auditorium to describe the anomalies of the HAAB leaders and reasons of Hajj mismanagement in details.
