JEDDAH, 12 January 2005 — Federal Parliamentary Affairs and Urban Development Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad is leading a 36-member high-level Haj goodwill mission from India, which will be arriving on Jan. 16. “The delegation will proceed to Makkah on arrival, and attend a community reception in Jeddah on Jan. 17. It will proceed to Mina on Jan. 19 and thereafter to Madinah on Jan. 23,” Indian Consul General Dr. Ausaf Sayeed told Arab News.
The delegation includes four members of Parliament — Mehbooba Mufti (Jammu & Kashmir), Anwar Hussain (Assam), Shafiqur Rahman Barq (Uttar Pradesh) and J.M. Aaron Rasheed (Tamil Nadu). Akhtar Rizvi of Maharashtra is among former MPs in the delegation, which also includes Javed Ansari, New Delhi-based senior special correspondent of The Hindu daily, and Sajjad Mirza, a journalist from Himachal Pradesh.
Aside from Mehbooba, the other women in the delegation are Rasoolan, wife of the late company havaldar Abdul Hameed, who was awarded the Paramveer Chakra for his courage during the 1965 war, and Dr. Alia Zuberi from Uttar Pradesh.
Following is the list of other members in the delegation: Hameed Agha, Aziz Ahmad Khan, Mehboob Khan Buggi, Muhammad Shabbir, Muhammad Irshad and Muhammad Adib, all from Uttar Pradesh; Paltu Khan and Nawab Khan from Rajasthan; Qaidjoher Bhaisaheb Ezzuddin from Maharashtra, M. Althaf Hussain, Basheer Ahamed, and T.N. Shaikh Muhammad from Tamil Nadu; Muhammad Abdul Salam from Manipur; Zafar Jang from Andhra Pradesh, and Badruddin Shaikh and John Momin from Gujarat; and Pirzada Siraj Madani Nizami, Moulana Syed Athar Hussain Dehlavi, Safdar Khan, Dr. M. Wali, Muhammad Ishtiyaq and Naved Hamid from Delhi, aside from Kerala Muslim Youth League President Syed Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal, J&K Legislative Council Chairman Abdul Rashid and Anees Durrani, former chairman of the Delhi State Haj Committee.
