Hussain Mohammed Al Shareef, the caretaker of the Nizam’s Rubath, the guest house in Mecca which offers pilgrims free refuge, has declared that there should be no more involvement of the Nizam’s Auqaf Committee with the selection of Haj pilgrims. He has said that he would henceforth take charge of the selection of pilgrims for a free stay for both the Umrah and Haj. It would be done online and in a transparent manner, he said.
“The Rubath in Mecca has no affiliation to the Auqaf Committee in Hyderabad; the Indian consulate in Saudi Arabia was officially responsible to clear the issue and he was ready to show proof that he was the caretaker there,” he said. In a letter to the minister of minority welfare Mohammed Ahamadullah, Mr Al Shareef has asked him to ensure that the Hyderabad Auqaf Nizam Committee’s second draw should not be regarded as valid, as it had a lot of loopholes. He would not accommodate those selected in the second draw, he said.
This latest missive thus puts into jeopardy the plan that 264 Hajis, selected by the Nizam’s Auqaf Committee, had for a free stay at the Rubath in Saudi Arabia. Mr Al Shareef clarified that the list of pilgrims selected by his online draw would rightfully deserve the stay. His reason to dissociate from the Auqaf Committee was because it had hitherto been a courtesy extended, not a legal proviso, which he no longer wanted to abide by, as a recent trip to Hyderabad showed him that their way of functioning was disorganised and he had received several complaints about it, he said.