The Hindu : Front Page : Inaugural Haj flight takes off from Karipur

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Thursday, Nov 22, 2007
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Inaugural Haj flight takes off from Karipur

Staff Reporter

On a pilgrimage: Minister in charge of Haj Affairs Paloli Mohammed Kutty flagging off the inaugural Haj flight at Karipur on Wednesday.

MALAPPURAM: The first Haj flight under the State Haj Committee took off from Calicut International Airport at Karipur on Wednesday afternoon carrying 215 pilgrims to Jeddah. Minister in charge of Haj Affairs Paloli Mohammed Kutty flagged off the inaugural flight AI 2451 at 12 midday, which took off 35 minutes later.

The Minister earlier inaugurated a Haj camp. State Haj Committee chairman A.K. Abdul Hameed offered prayers and gave instructions to the first batch of pilgrims. The pilgrims, who arrived at the camp on Tuesday, checked in their baggage from the camp itself.

They had entered into Ihram (a sacred state compulsory for Haj) by wearing two seamless sheets of clothes before they left the camp for the airport. The women pilgrims were in purdah.

Air India operated A300-B4 aircraft, the first twin-engine wide-body aircraft in the world produced by Airbus in 1976, for the inaugural Haj flight from Karipur. Air India will fly six more A300-B4 to carry Haj pilgrims from Karipur. The first batch has 94 men and 121 women. Eighty of them are from Malappuram district, 58 from Kozhikode, 32 from Thiruvananthapuram, 18 from Ernakulam, 13 from Kannur, six from Kasaragod, five from Kollam, and three from Wayanad district.

The second flight will leave Karipur at 12.45 p.m. on Thursday. There will be three flights each on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. There will be 31 Haj flights till December 6 to carry 8,243 pilgrims under the State Haj Committee.

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