No Hajj this year for Bangladeshis

No intending Bangladeshi pilgrim would be able to travel to Saudi Arabia for performing Hajj this year due to restrictions imposed by the Saudi Arabian government.

‘I was planning to go for Hajj with a group of people,’ Faruk Ahmed Sarder of Dhaka said, adding ‘Unfortunately we would not be able to go due to restrictions imposed amid the coronavirus pandemic.’

The Saudi authorities have decided to allow a very limited number of citizens and residents, who are already in the kingdom, to perform Hajj in light of the continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic and the risks of infection in crowded spaces and large gatherings this year, state-run the Saudi Gazette reported on Tuesday.

The cancellation of Hajj has disappointed especially many aged people because they think that they may not get the chance later to perform the Islamic ritual, Faruk said.

Some people were also planning to perform Hajj with their family members, he said, adding that the younger pilgrims were, however, worried about COVID-19 infection risk during their journey and their stay in different places in the KSA. 

The government and the Hajj agencies will, however, refund the fees deposited by the intending pilgrims if they prefer to take back the money.

‘The pilgrims would get the refund of the Hajj fees,’ religious affairs ministry secretary Md Nurul Islam said on Tuesday.

Saudi foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan informed the decision to his Bangladesh counterpart AK Abdul Momen over telephone on Monday evening, according to a foreign ministry press release issued on Tuesday.

Momen termed the Saudi decision as wise under the pandemic circumstances.

The government is likely to take a decision for refund of the fees deposited for Hajj registration if the intending pilgrims want back their money.

The aspiring pilgrims deposited Tk 3.15 lakh to Tk 4.25 lakh to perform Hajj in any of three packages at rates set by the cabinet in February.

Over 61,000 would-be pilgrims deposited the fees for performing Hajj under private management of Hajj agencies while over 3,100 such pilgrims deposited the fees under the government arrangement.

Hajj Agencies Association of Bangladesh president Md Shahadat Hossain Taslim on Tuesday said that the agencies would refund the fees if the intending pilgrims formally expressed their willingness to withdraw the money.

Asked how many days it would take to return the money, he said that the government would need to make a number of decisions for facilitating the refund to the pilgrims.

‘The fees that the pilgrims have deposited through banks are kept in accounts blocked by the government. The government should remove the block for facilitating the refund of the fees,’ Shahadat said.

He said that a good number of intending pilgrims were now expressing their willingness for forwarding their registration to perform Hajj in 2021.

‘It would be impossible to forward their registrations for the next year as their registrations would be automatically cancelled with the withdrawal of the fees deposited this year,’ he added.

There was a quota set by the Saudi government for Bangladesh to send a maximum of 1,20,000 pilgrims this year.

This is for the first time the Saudi government has made a decision, in the country’s modern history, to bar Muslims from outside the Arab kingdom from participating in Hajj.

The KSA drew over 2.5 Hajj pilgrims last year.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net