The government is going to take punitive steps against 193 hajj agencies for deceiving the pilgrims and being involved with human trafficking.
The owners of these agencies have already been served show-cause notices by the Ministry of Religious Affairs. They were asked to attend a hearing and give statements before the ministry on February 4, 5 and 6.
Officials said the ministry would take actions against them in February after getting reports from its hearing committee.
Jahangir Alam, deputy secretary of the ministry, told the Dhaka Tribune yesterday that the ministry had identified 196 agencies as guilty of being involved in such offenses. Of them, three agencies have already been punished with their licenses cancelled and deposits confiscated.
Earlier, Kazi Habibul Awal, secretary of the ministry, said a total of 162 pilgrims had failed to go to Saudi Arabia to perform hajj this year because of negligence and fraud by seven agencies. These agencies were found guilty in an internal investigation.
Of them, 143 pilgrims registered with the Saudi Hajj Air Services and 15 with Rafique Travels. The licenses of these two agencies were cancelled for good and cases were filed against them. The government also attached TK60 lakh deposit money of those agencies, the secretary said.
The ministry fined Saudi Hajj Air Services TK50 lakh and Rafique Travels TK15 lakh.
The ministry officials also said the Saudi Arabian authority had claimed that a total 176 people, who went to perform hajj from Bangladesh last year, did not come back home. However, the hajj management portal of the ministry claimed that a total of 498 persons did not return.
The agencies had been accused of failing to keep their commitments about accommodating the pilgrims in the houses that they had registered, provide adequate transport, sufficient housing and quality of food.
Farid Ahmed, joint secretary of the Hajj Agencies Association of Bangladesh (HAAB), said: “The number of agencies accused of fraud is less than the previous years. But, we demand punitive actions against those agencies.”
He said 196 hajj agencies out of the 628 were found guilty last year. A total of 289 hajj agencies out of 355 were accused in the year before.
A total of 87,854 pilgrims went to Saudi Arabia for performing hajj last year.