Luckily employee’s to perform Hajj on NBP (Pakistan) expenses

[sharif]

Luckily employee’s to perform Hajj on NBP expenses
I want to share my information that this 27 employee’s from NATIONAL BANK OF PAKISAN will perform Hajj on bank expenses.

The luckily staff names will announced after balloting.

5 staff from executive up to VP
10 staff from officers up to Grade I
10 clerical and non-clerical staff
2 retired employees

I salute National Bank of Pakistan for sending 27 staff to perform Hajj on bank expense.

Why not other reputed banks, companies and multinational organization from Pakistan and other Islamic countries remain behind for this noble cause and send minimum 5 or 12 or 14 staff from their organization to perform Hajj if any organization do not take any steps in this regard.



Thanking You.


Yours faithfully



( Ashfaq Sharif )

 

[waltky]

It's almost Hajj time again...

Iran accuses Saudi Arabia of 'murdering' pilgrims during hajj stampede
Monday 5 September 2016 - Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says authorities in Mecca ‘locked up the injured with the dead in containers’, in further deterioration of diplomatic relations

Iran’s supreme leader has said Saudi Arabian authorities “murdered” Muslim pilgrims who were injured during last year’s hajj stampede, as Mecca prepares to host the annual event again. “The heartless and murderous Saudis locked up the injured with the dead in containers — instead of providing medical treatment and helping them or at least quenching their thirst. They murdered them,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement on his website marking the anniversary of the disaster and calling for new management of the event. He offered no evidence to support the allegations. Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and interior minister, Mohammed bin Nayef, said Iran was attempting to “politicise” the hajj.

In comments published later on Monday by the Saudi Press Agency, he said Iran had decided not to send its citizens to the pilgrimage this year, which starts on Friday. Iran accuses Saudi Arabia of sabotaging negotiations that took place earlier this year regarding the security of pilgrims. The September 2015 stampede and crush of pilgrims killed at least 2,426 people, according to an Associated Press count. Tehran has said 464 of the dead were Iranian and blamed the catastrophe on Saudi mismanagement of the annual pilgrimage. Khamenei has also blamed Saudi Arabia for an earlier crane collapse in Mecca that killed 111 people, and said the kingdom’s rulers had were “satans”. “Those who have reduced Hajj to a religious-tourist trip and have hidden their enmity and malevolence towards the faithful and revolutionary people of Iran under the name of ‘politicising hajj’, are themselves small and puny satans who tremble for fear of jeopardising the interests of the Great Satan, the US,” he said in the statement.

A top Saudi official said Khamenei’s accusations reflect “a new low”. “These accusations are not only unfounded, but also timed to only serve their unethical, failing propaganda,” said Abdulmohsen Alyas, the Saudi undersecretary for international communications and media at the Ministry of Culture and Information. “Saudi Arabia stands ready to serve the pilgrims and ensure their safety and comfort,” Alyas said. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said the ministry has formed a committee to investigate the issue and pursue it in international forums, without elaborating.

The hajj stampede caused a new flare-up in tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia, regional rivals that back opposite sides in the civil wars in Syria and Yemen. The two countries severed diplomatic relations in January after Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Shiite cleric and angry Iranian crowds overran Saudi diplomatic missions. Saudi authorities have not released the findings of their investigation into the hajj disaster. Preliminary statements suggested the crush was caused when at least two large crowds intersected. Saudi Arabia is this year issuing pilgrims with electronic bracelets and using more surveillance cameras to avoid a repeat of the crush.

Iran accuses Saudi Arabia of 'murdering' pilgrims during hajj stampede

See also:

How One of the Deadliest Hajj Accidents Unfolded
6 Sept.`16 - On Sept. 24, 2015, hundreds, maybe thousands, of pilgrims were crushed to death at the hajj in Mecca. Rashid Siddiqui survived. This is his story of that day.

“I’m dying. I’m dying. I need water.” Rashid Siddiqui kept hearing those words from his fellow Muslim pilgrims lying mangled on the ground in 118-degree heat, under a searing Saudi sun. Barefoot, topless and dazed, Mr. Siddiqui had somehow escaped being crushed by the surging crowd. It was Sept. 24, 2015, the third morning of the hajj, the annual five-day pilgrimage to Mecca by millions of Muslims from around the world. By some estimates, it was the deadliest day in hajj history and one of the worst accidents in the world in decades. An American from Atlanta, Mr. Siddiqui, 42, had been walking through a sprawling valley of tens of thousands of pilgrim tents. His destination: Jamarat Bridge, where pilgrims throw pebbles at three large pillars in a ritual symbolizing the stoning of the devil. He was less than a mile from the bridge when the crush began.

Mr. Siddiqui took this photograph about 15 minutes before the crush.​

Hundreds, and probably thousands, died. But nearly a year later, the Saudi authorities have yet to explain exactly how the disaster happened. Nor have they provided what is widely considered an accurate death toll. Many of the victims came from Iran, Saudi Arabia’s bitter rival, creating a new source of acrimony between the countries that led Iran’s government to bar its citizens from the hajj this year. Deadly crowd crushes once frequently marred the hajj, especially around the Jamarat Bridge. The Saudis sought to prevent such calamities by expanding the bridge after more than 360 people died near it in 2006. After the expansion, there were no major episodes — until last year. A count by The Associated Press, derived from official and state news reports of the dead from 36 countries with pilgrims in Mecca, found that at least 2,400 people had died. The Saudi authorities, however, still give an official death toll of 769.

Rashid Siddiqui at his home outside Atlanta.​

Despite years of accusations of mismanagement, the Saudi royal family has repeatedly insisted on its right to supervise the hajj. All Muslims who are physically and financially able to complete the hajj are obliged to do so at least once in their lives. Under Saudi Arabia’s ruling royal family, which regards the king as the custodian of Islam’s holiest sites, the number of pilgrims coming from outside the country has grown more than tenfold since World War II. In recent years, two million to three million people have attended the annual hajj. The Saudis have poured tens of billions of dollars into expanding pilgrimage accommodations that often cater to the wealthy, who can pay upward of $2,700 a night for choice hotel rooms overlooking the Kaaba, the black cube that is considered to be the House of God, at the center of Islam’s holiest mosque in Mecca.

Mr. Siddiqui took this photograph just before he and his companions were stopped.​

But even the wealthiest pilgrims spend part of the pilgrimage in an enormous tent city, known as Mina, where Muslims are grouped according to the part of the world they come from. Mr. Siddiqui awoke before dawn inside a brightly lit tent. He had stayed up late, chatting and drinking tea with friends, then slept on a floor mattress beside dozens of other pilgrims separated by canvas partitions. Despite the hour, Mr. Siddiqui said, he felt fresh and strong. Two weeks earlier, he had been working as a building information manager in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, but he quit and decided at the last minute to make his first hajj. He was surprised to find the pilgrimage relaxing — almost like a vacation, he said — not the grueling trek that some hajj veterans had warned him to expect. Dressed in sandals and his ihram, the men’s hajj clothing of two white, cloth wraps, Mr. Siddiqui washed, prayed and ate breakfast from the tent’s buffet with his companions, relishing the communal experience.

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