SRINAGAR, June 21: The Jammu and Kashmir government has approached the centre for a special quota for at least 350 Hajj aspirants who were duped by Hajeej-an operator of Hajj and Umrah Services-last year.
“We want to make sure that these aspirants are provided a chance to perform Hajj this year”, a senior officer in the Hajj and Auqaf department was quoted by a news agency KNS.
The official said these aspirants could be accommodated only if New Delhi sanctioned a special quota.
The 350 candidates would be in addition to the current 6,500 pilgrims for the Hajj in 2012.
However they will not be part of an additional quota of 1,500 seats which the state government is expecting soon.
Meanwhile, an official communiqué has been sent to Minster for Foreign affairs S. M Krishna by the Junior Minister for Hajj and Auqaf, Aijaz Ahmad Khan, requesting him to sanction the additional quota for the duped aspirants.
“More than 300 aspirants were cheated by a bogus company namely Hajeej, though a case has been filed in this connection and investigations are on, but the state government was not able to facilitate the aspirants for performing Hajj last year. We now request to please sanction an additional special quota for these aspirants”, KNS quoted the letter which was dispatched on Wednesday.
Pertinently more than 500 aspirants missed the chance of performing Hajj, after the travel company they were traveling through, turned out to be a bogus one.
The owner of the company was later arrested and an investigation is going on. More the 10 crore rupees have been swindled by the company which are being recovered by authorities, sources said.
