Mana also said that 12 of the 71 injured pilgrims were transported to Saudi Arabia by tour operators and 59 by state pilgrims’ welfare agencies. Civil defense officials could not be immediately reached.
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Khamenei has already called on Saudi Arabia to apologize to Muslim nations and accept responsibility for the hajj disaster. Those fingerprints may prove critical as numerous disaster’s victims lost their ID bracelets in the crush, he said.
Meanwhile, Indonesia’s Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifudin said in a statement on Monday that Indonesians did not have free access to hospitals to search for the injured.
“Saudi Arabia failed to fulfill its duties concerning the desperate wounded [pilgrims]”, he said.
“By using our ability to network, we can significantly accelerate the process of victim identification”.
According to Saudi officials, over 760 Muslim pilgrims have died during the stampede at the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mina near Mecca on Thursday.
The Head of Data Unit of the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria’s Medical Centre in Mecca, Dr. Jibrin Suleman has said 19 Nigerian pilgrims died of heart diseases, hypertension, diabetes and other related ailments during the just-concluded Hajj. “The incident should be fully investigated to see how it happened and what caused it”.
A resolution was submitted in the Punjab Assembly on Tuesday, demanding that a protest be lodged with the Saudi government over the slow-paced efforts to deliver information regarding casualties in the Mina incident.
Meanwhile, relatives of a couple from Gujarat – which is missing after the stampede – got visas to visit Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
Indian, Pakistani and Indonesian officials have also been quoted as saying they think more than 1,000 died. In all, Saudi officials estimate that at least 769 people were killed and more than 900 injured, with many bodies still unidentified. Critics of the Saudi government say the disaster may have been caused by authorities halting crowds to make way for a VIP.
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The court had taken up a petition filed by a citizen Arif Idrees through Advocate Azhar Siddique. So far, no hearing has been set.
