Govt sacks key Haj panel member to plant its own

An outraged top brass of the Haj Committee, including its chairman, have demanded that the Government explain its unprecedented decision to ...

An outraged top brass of the Haj Committee, including its chairman, have demanded that the Government explain its unprecedented decision to sack scientist and Padma Bhushan S Z Qasim from the committee midway through his term. And, bring in his place, Salamat Ullah Khan, a former chairman who was dropped after a messy legal tangle in the Supreme Court.

Qasim has sent an angry letter to External Affairs Minister (then Jaswant Singh) alleging discrimination: ‘‘I am disturbed and humiliated by such action by your Ministry which has degraded my image and prestige…’’

Current chairman of the Haj Committee Tanvir Ahmed—who was brought in when Salamat Ullah was removed in 1999—says that even he wasn’t consulted over Qasim’s removal.

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‘‘It is only when I got the gazette notification that I realised what had happened,’’ he told The Indian Express. ‘‘Along with other members of the Haj Committee, I have personally lodged our protest with Home Minister L K Advani and Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha. We have told them that what happened to Dr Qasim was highly objectionable. They said they will look into it.’’

Talmiz Ahmed, at present India’s Ambassador in Riyadh, who was earlier handling the Haj desk in the Ministry of External Affairs says while he did not want to comment upon Dr Qasim’s removal, it was evident that Salamat Ullah was behind the group which took the Government to court.

‘‘In the 1999 petition, the BJP was called anti-Muslim and anti-Haj and though not by name, Salamat Ullah was obviously the de facto petitioner and funded the cost of litigation. The case was important enough for Attorney General Soli Sorabjee to argue. When the stay was vacated and we got orders to reconstitute the committee, it was a vindication of the MEA’s stand.’’

Salamat Ullah is unfazed by the controversy.

‘‘It’s the Government’s discretion to appoint whoever they want. There is no comparison to Dr Qasim as an ocean scientist and there is no comparison to the work I have done in the Haj Committee. He has a total of four years of experience on the Committee, I have 12 years. He did not even attend meetings regularly.’’

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Salamat Ullah has had the longest run of six years as chairman of the 17-member Haj Committee and was shifted out in June 1999 when the Supreme Court allowed reconstitution of the committee. It was in May 2000, when the court asked the MEA to fill six posts of ex-officio members, that Qasim was brought in.

Salamat Ullah’s earlier stint was marked by several complaints of neopotism and corruption.

The committee wields quite a lot of clout largely on account of its negotiations with the Government on extent of subsidy, fixing accommodation contracts for stay of pilgrims as well as arranging for Haj charter flights.

Ritu Sarin

Ritu Sarin is Executive Editor (News and Investigations) at The Indian Express group. Her areas of specialisation include internal security, money laundering and corruption. Sarin is one of India’s most renowned reporters and has a career in journalism of over four decades. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 1999 and since early 2023, a member of its Board of Directors. She has also been a founder member of the ICIJ Network Committee (INC). She has, to begin with, alone, and later led teams which have worked on ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, the Uber Files and Deforestation Inc. She has conducted investigative journalism workshops and addressed investigative journalism conferences with a specialisation on collaborative journalism in several countries. ... Read More