India Canceled Hajj 2020: Amid the pandemic of COVID-19, the Hajj Committee has planned to inquire from the pilgrims about this year’s Hajj; India has now canceled Hajj, to which they can collect their refund.
With the peak period within a few countries, it is unlikely that Muslims from India would make it to undertake 2020’s Hajj pilgrimage, as per the sources. A circular was issued on Friday, which has been signed by Maqsood Ahmed Khan, the CEO of the Hajj Committee, which stated that Saudi Arabia declared on March 13th that preparations of this year’s Hajj should be temporarily stopped. It also stated that only a few weeks are remaining for India to do the preparatory work.
It further included that after receiving a lot of queries and concerns from many pilgrims, they planned to refund the whole amount to any worshiper who wants to cancel his Hajj registration. He or she has just required to fill-up the form which is available on the website of the Hajj Committee.
Reuters also stated that Saudi Arabia might also consider limiting the pilgrims in this year’s Hajj. Approximately, 2.5 million Muslims perform Hajj each year. Few nations have planned out to restrict their locals for this year’s Hajj. We can take an example of the most prominent country with the largest Muslim population in the world; Indonesia.
Hajj appears as one of the five pillars of Islam which is followed by every Muslim at least once in their life if they are healthy and maintain the required wealth. This year, 2 lac Indian Muslims were supposed to perform Hajj. More than 95,000 cases of COVID-19 and 600 deaths were reported within Saudi Arabia within the pandemic, in accordance with the data provided by John Hopkins University.
Source: Financial Times (India)
