Owaisi urges Centre to bring back stranded pilgrims from Saudi Arabia
AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday urged the Centre to grant permission to airlines to operate flights to bring back stranded Indian pilgrims in Saudi Arabia.
Hyderabad: AIMIM President Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday urged the Centre to grant permission to airlines to operate flights to bring back stranded Indian pilgrims in Saudi Arabia.
The Hyderabad MP posted on X that 4,000 pilgrims from India are stuck in Makkah and Madina.
He said they had flown via IndiGo, Akasa Air, and Air India but are now stuck there since these airlines have cancelled their flights.
Owaisi said the Director General of Civil Aviation must give these airlines permission to run flights in larger aircraft so that these stranded pilgrims can return to India. If not, specified flights must be arranged to bring them back, he said.
The MP stated that the Indian pilgrims have been abandoned by their travel agents. “This needs your urgent intervention; in the meanwhile, necessary support must be provided to the stranded pilgrims,” said Owaisi, who tagged Minister for Minority Affairs Kiren Rijiju, Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar, Civil Aviation Minister K. Ram Mohan Naidu, and Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri in his post.
Umrah pilgrims from India are stranded in Saudi Arabia due to the cancellation of flights following attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on airports in the kingdom.
A pilgrim from Hyderabad was among 13 killed, and more than 300, including 11 Indians, were injured in the missile attack on King Khalid International Airport, Riyadh, on October 11.
Mohammed Yousuf Ali, 46, a techie from Hyderabad, was killed and his two sons were injured.
Yousuf Ali, employed in Riyadh for the last 10 years, had called his wife, three children, and an aunt to Saudi Arabia for Umrah.
They were at Riyadh airport and waiting in the lounge to board a flight to Madina when the airport was hit by a missile fired by Houthis.
Shaik Saeed, 42, from Kamareddy district of Telangana, who was employed at a café at the airport, was also injured.
The latest attack on Saudi Arabia’s Dammam airport on the night of October 21 killed two people and injured eight others.
A Saudi and an Indian were killed in the latest attack.
