With Hajj being less than a month away, the Ministry of Religious Affairs has received over 700 applications that say the original applicants cannot perform hajj due to various reasons and want others to take part in the holy pilgrimage in their stead, according to sources at the ministry.
Mizanur Rahman, director of the Hajj Office under the ministry, confirmed it to the Dhaka Tribune and said they had received a total of 723 such applications, on the grounds of death and severe illness.
“In most applications, direct relatives have been nominated to take the place of the original applicants, while there are a few that name candidates with no blood relations to the original applicants,” he said.
“As they original applicants had already paid for the pilgrimage in full, and there is no scope for a refund now, we are allowing the proxy applicants to take part in hajj, on humanitarian grounds,” he added.
All of the applications included the required documents – ie death certificates, medical certificates, etc – from respective local public representatives to get the permission from the ministry, the ministry official said, adding that some of the secondary applicants had already flown off to Saudi Arabia.
When asked how many hajj applicants had died this year, Mizan said: “It is difficult to say the exact number, as there are 835 agencies, through whom the pilgrims have applied this year.”
Meanwhile, the Saudi Arabian Embassy rejected more than 100 hajj visa applications, when the ministry officials had assured that there would be no problem in getting the visa, according to several agencies.
In this regard, the Hajj Office director said the number could not be more than 60, and those applications had been rejected due to technical problems.
“We have already spoken with the embassy, and they have been instructed to submit the applications again, saying they would approve them within due time,” he said. “We have already asked the hajj agencies to submit the details required for the applications,” he added.
Sources said more than 58,000 Bangladeshi hajj pilgrims have already reached Saudi Arabia. A total of 98,683 Bangladeshis are expected to perform hajj this year. Among them, only 1,508 are being sent by the government, and the rest are going with the help of private hajj agencies.