Hyderabad: A travel agency allegedly cheated several people by claiming it would send them on the holy Haj pilgrimage. Al-Burraq Hajj & Umrah Service allegedly collected money to the tune of '2 crores from 53 Haj aspirants including NRIs. The agency, however, failed to live up to its claims.
According to the police, accused Mirza Inayat Ali Baig was booked for a case of cheating.
The Al-Burraq Hajj & Umrah Service was managed and operated by Acme Overseas Consultants, which in turn was headed by Ayesha Inayat, the wife of the accused.
A Haj aspirant, Naseer Ahmed, Assistant Professor in an engineering college in Kurnool said, “All the pilgrims who are going to visit Haj should be prepared with their visas 15 days before the five-day pilgrimage which starts from August 19 and ends on August 23. Every Muslim dreams of visiting the place. But they did not get their visas till today. When contacted, the owner did not respond to the calls.”
A number of Muslims from Hyderabad book their flight tickets and make arrangements through these agencies.
Naseer Ahmed, who paid Rs 5 lakh for the pilgrimage some nine months backs said, “They failed to make the arrangements. When asked, the owner said that he was trying to book the tickets from another consultancy. When he failed to deliver, we approached the police to complain about him and lodged a case of cheating. This is the second time he has done this.”
According to another Haj aspirant, Moham-med Nayeem (hailing from Qatar), the travel agency Al-Burraq Hajj & Umrah Service had claimed to send pilgrims to Makah and accordingly had collected an amount of Rs 2 crore from around 53 pilgrims.
However, Nayeem got to know about the fraud when people did not receive calls from the agency even after the date for travel and other formalities for Haj were due. “More than 53 Haj aspirants have been cheated of several crores by the travel agency with the fake promise of providing visas,” he alleged.
He claimed that he and his family had submitted their passports and around Rs 24.5 lakh to the agency for the pilgrimage.
“Even after the pilgrimage started, our passports were not returned to us. Excuses were made and the agency told us that the delay was caused due to unavoidable circumstances and we were asked to wait,” he said.
