Five Indians killed in haj fire identified

Sonny Abraham in Dubai

Five of the Indians killed and 75 of those hurt in Tuesday's fire in an encampment for Muslim haj pilgrims at Mina, Saudi Arabia, have been identified. A tentative list of the 383 people missing has also been prepared.

Those who died were Sayeedan Begam, Nazira Begum, Ahmed Khan and Abdul Rashid A Rahman of Camp 59 and Mohammed P Pandal of Camp 60.

The external affairs ministry has said a list of the 75 injured and those missing is available with the Central Haj Committee, Bombay; State Haj Committee, Delhi; and the ministry itself.

The list of those missing is tentative as many could have gone out of the camp to visit other holy places. ''It needs to be kept in mind that pilgrims keep trickling back into Mecca even after the haj is over since many tend to get lost, miss their transport or go to the wrong areas and camps,'' the ministry cautioned.

The fire, which destroyed some 70,000 tents on the eve of the haj, killed at least 343 people and injured nearly 1,300.

About half of the victims are feared to be Indians, though no precise figures were available even on Friday, April 18, three days after the blaze.

Officials have said that the number of Indians killed should run into three figures but have not been able to give out details, pending identification of bodies.

The task has been made difficult for the Saudi authorities by the fact that most of the bodies have been charred beyond recognition and have no marks of identification on them.

K Raghunath, secretary (east), of the external affairs ministry, said over the telephone from Jeddah that the teams of Indian officials are meeting Indian pilgrims in their camps at Mina to compile a list of missing people.

Teams of Indian doctors and paramedical personnel have also been visiting hospitals in Mina, Mecca and Jeddah where the injured have been admitted for treatment.

"The teams are trying to contact people and collate information from various sources," Indian Ambassador in Saudi Arabia Mohammed Hamid Ansari said.

Raghunath is leading a high-level team of officials from India which reached Jeddah on Friday morning for a first-hand assessment of the situation arising out of the fire.

The other members of the team -- Talmiz Ahmed, joint secretary (external publicity), and Azhar Khan, officer on special duty, served in the Indian consulate-general in Jeddah earlier -- travelled to Mecca and Mina to meet the pilgrims.

"Our first priority is the human element," Raghunath said at the end of long meetings with Indian officials involved in the relief operations.

He said he would meet Saudi officials in Jeddah later and seek their help. One of the main tasks is to find out how many of the missing people actually died in the fire and convey the information to their relatives in India at the earliest, he stressed.

Ansari said many of those on the list of missing people have turned up safe. "This is not unusual considering the great mobility of people during the pilgrimage," he explained.

Nearly two million people from all over the world, including some 81,000 Indians, had reached the kingdom for this year's haj. The Indian pilgrims include 54,000 people who came through the Central Haj Committee. The rest made their own arrangements and Indians who travelled to Saudi Arabia from other parts of the world, including the Gulf.

Raghunath said efforts are also being made to ensure that those admitted to hospitals with injuries are receiving proper treatment. He said arrangements have been made to provide food to the pilgrims in the camps.

Many of them have lost all their money and need financial help, he said.

Raghunath assured arrangements are being made to send the injured back to India at the earliest. "We have got an aircraft on standby in Bombay," he said.

The first of the scheduled haj flights to ferry the pilgrims back home is to operate on Sunday and Indian officials said those of the injured who wished to return home early would be given preference.

Air-India is also understood to have expressed its readiness to operate additional flights, if needed, to fly the injured pilgrims home.

Before leaving for Saudi Arabia, Raghunath had told reporters in Delhi that the government is considering financial relief to the next of kin of those killed in the blaze and those who had suffered permanent disabilities as is done in the case of disasters in India.