By TCN News,
Hyderabad: Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee has strongly condemned the attitude of private travel operators of Haj (holy pilgrimage to Makkah-Medina), who are playing with the sentiments of Hajj aspirators.
“It is a matter of deep concern that Haj which is an important act among the five pillars of Islam, has become a big business for the travel operators where as it is a great worship for the common people,” a statement by CLMC said.
The private travel operators are luring the common people through advertisements in the Urdu newspapers with all the false promises such as low cost, good accommodation, guaranteed Haj visa etc and then at the last moment they just vanish away from the field without giving any information to the aspirants.
If at all any aspirant approaches them with the complaint they are just answering easily that, ‘if it is written in your luck, you will perform Haj, we are just service provider and we try our best’. They are just pushing all their mistakes on Hajis by saying these words, CLMC claimed.
CLMC alleged that it has been going on for years, but this year it has increased to its peak level where thousands of aspirants are cheated on the name of Haj. Among these private operators only 12 are registered with the government and others are unregistered in Hyderabad.
The registered operators are booking more than the allotted Quota by the government. And the unregistered operators lure the people with all false promises that they have connections with the Ministries, Prime Minister Quota, etc and often ditch them.
This way hundreds of Haj aspirants are suffering with trauma, shock and some of them even suffered with heart attacks, alleged CLMC. Haj is a spiritual journey, and a guilt of Allah did not want the prospective pilgrim to take the Holy journey often takes a toll on individual.
According to CLMC, there have been instances of the aspirants being told by these operators to come to Airport by wearing ‘Ahraam’(which is the dress code while performing Haj), and when they reach to the airport, no one is found there and finally they understand that they have been cheated by these operators. One can understand what type of condition they would have faced due to this cheating.
In a strong statement, CLMC said, “It is a matter of deep concern that the politicians, leaders, VIPs, newspaper editors and religious personalities are backing these fraudulent people who are playing with the lives and sentiments of common people in the name of religion ‘Islam’.”
The common people are unable to report this matter as they are suffering with shame that their own people are ditching them on the name of Islam and also there is no one to listen to their woes as it is a matter of pilgrimage and they think that these matters should not be talked badly about.
Even the religious leaders are encouraging the illegal activities of private operators and then when they ditch the people they are consoling them by saying that, “It is not written in your fate, and Allah has not called you, so you are unable to go, wait for his call, do not blame travel operators”.
This committee believes that all these irregularities are taking place due to the negligence of government and corrupt system. Both the Indian and Saudi Arabian governments are responsible for these acts. Even the Saudi government does not issue individual visas and they encourage the travel agents and instruct the people that they should approach only genuine travel agents. Can the common people know who the genuine travel operators are and who are not? Even the registered travel operators are not fair enough. This is the tragedy of the common people; they are not left tension free and corrupt free even to go on pilgrimage.
Therefore, Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee has demanded the governments of India and Saudi Arabia to stop business on the name of Haj and to cancel all the private travel operators and permit a common man to directly apply for Haj visa online.
CLMC further appealed to all the religious leaders, editors of Urdu newspapers not to encourage these private travel operators only for the sake of money and make aware the common people of all the illegal activities by such travel operators.
CLMC now plans to take the initiative to stop all these illegal activities in the name of Islam and Haj and work to provide the hassle free Haj facility to all.