Hajj scam: FIA team heads to Saudi Arabia for evidence

The FIA team, which will comprise two senior officials, will probe financial irregularities in the Hajj scheme.

Widening the scope of investigation into a massive scam in the ministry of religious affairs, the government is preparing to send a Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) team to Saudi Arabia to smoke out those behind financial irregularities involving millions of rupees.

“Yes, the FIA’s team headed by Mr Ghalib will convene crucial meetings with the Saudi Hajj ministry’s officials to deconstruct the scam into Hajj affairs which stirred a furor among pilgrims,” said FIA Director General Waseem Ahmad.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik also told reporters that the FIA team would quiz all the players involved in the corruption and irregularities which had put an extra burden of Rs35,000 on each pilgrim this year.

“The Hajj scam revolves around all the ‘black fish’ involved in corruption — whether it’s on part of the administration or anybody else – that compounded the miseries of pilgrims in Saudi Arabia,” Malik said.

Meanwhile, sources in the FIA confided to The Express Tribune that a special team would also visit the office of Saudi Hajj Minister Dr Abdul Salam Al Farooqui to brief him about the development of the case.

Earlier, in a meeting with Deputy Minister Hatim Hassan Qazi, Pakistani Religious Affairs Minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi pledged that culprits within the ministry involved in the scam would be nabbed.

Joint Secretary Raja Aftabul Islam who arranged accommodation for the pilgrims and heads the committee responsible for the arrangements has already been asked to cooperate with the FIA team investigating the saga, they added.

Under the new Hajj policy, the government had decided to provide better accommodation to the pilgrims on the outskirts of holy places like Holy Haram, Mina, etc. However, due to mismanagement, some 70,000 pilgrims were compelled to stay four to nine kilometres away from the main mosques.

But following an unusually strong reaction from the pilgrims in Makkah and Madina last week, Religious Affairs Minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi  agreed to pay Rs5,600 to Rs25,000 to the pilgrims as compensation.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 30th, 2010.