The FIA team, probing the Haj scam, has unearthed some ‘irregularities’ in the ledgers kept by private tour operators hinting they might have charged extra from pilgrims. The FIA investigators found that the operators were unable to explain their expenses and they could not justify different categories under which they had taken money from pilgrims to pay it to the Ministry of Religious Affairs, an official told Pakistan Today on Tuesday.
He said that the ministry, which is one of the main regulatory authorities, had failed to devise any rules under which the tour operators prepared their break ups before Haj. “The negligence of the ministry hence paved way for the operators to charge extra money from pilgrims”, he said. He said the FIA team has also completed recording of statements by tour operators but it could not get any evidence against the then minister Hamid Saeed Kazmi.
Umer Ali Khan Sherazi, ambassador of Pakistan in Saudi Arabia, had previously alleged that that former minister took Rs 10,000 from tour operators for each pilgrim. He said that the FIA team investigated documents of 630 tour operators across the country, only to find they had prepared different break ups arbitrarily and without any rules.
