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Haj pilgrims won't require police verification for passports New
Delhi: In a bid to facilitate the issuance of temporary passports to Haj pilgrims,
the UPA Government has decided to do away with police verification process. On
Monday, the Haj Committee of India said the Government's decision to this effect
came after two meetings in Delhi and Bangalore on June 8 and 10 June, chaired
by N Ravi, Secretary (East), Ministry of External Affairs. "The police verification
for Haj pilgrims has been waived off. The decision was taken keeping in mind the
difficulties in issuance of passports to pilgrims in a short span of two months,"
said Mohd Owais, the Chief Executive Officer of Haj Committee of India, in the
national capital. The issue of Haj passport for Saudi Arabia will be valid for
eight months only and this will not be renewed. However, Owais said those pilgrims
who would like to make their Haj passports a permanent one later, will have to
go through police verification. Owais also said that pilgrims, who have already
submitted their application forms for passport and their police verification pending
till 20th June, will be issued passports. "If there is no adverse reports, pilgrims
will get their passports," Owais said, adding the Haj Committee has received around
3.57 lakh applications this year from devotees who want to perform Haj this year.
"The Haj Committee has a quota of 1.04 lakh while the private sector has a quota
of 45,000. The rest is that of government quota," Owais said. The decision to
issue passports came in the backdrop of Saudi Arabia insisting that the pilgrims
should carry international passports. "We had meetings with them. But they said
they wanted a uniform pattern and said they cannot change the deadline in this
regard for India alone," Owais said.
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