The first Haj special flight with 150 pilgrims on board took off from the airport here for the Prince Mohammad bin Abdulaziz International Airport, Medina in Saudi Arabia, at 4.15 p.m. on Monday.
According to K.M. Aboobakker Siddiq, member, Karnataka State Haj Committee, a total of 790 pilgrims would travel from here in three days till July 26. They are from Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Chikkamagaluru, Kodagu and Hassan districts.
He said that two Haj special flights, one at 12.55 p.m. and the other at 4.15 p.m., would leave here on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Mr. Siddiq said that there were 6,000 applications from five districts to travel from Mangaluru.
The quota of pilgrims fixed for the State was 6,000. The remaining would travel from Bengaluru between August 8 and August 22. One Haj flight would take off from Bengaluru every day. In all, 23,500 applications had been received to travel from the State.
He said that the pilgrims travelled from Mangaluru would return before September 10.
This year’s Haj camp for the pilgrims has been arranged at Ansar School in Bajpe.
Sardar Ahmed, a retired teacher from Hassan, who was going for Haj for the first time through the committee, said that he had applied for the third time this year. He was lucky as he had been waiting for long for the travel.
The travel required about ₹ 2.50 lakh per person, he said.
