TEHRAN – Leader of a Pakistani religious scholars association has said that no ruler can prevent the Muslims from participating in Hajj rituals.

Hajj is one of the main principles in Islam and the Muslims, be it Shia or Sunni, cannot be deprived of their right to perform it, Shahzadeh Pirjan said in an interview with Mehr news agency published on Saturday.

Pirjan also said the Mina incident in September 2015 in which hundreds of pilgrims lost their lives must not occur again.

A disproportionate number of Iranian pilgrims were crushed to death in the tragic incident. Iran said at the time that Riyadh was incapable of managing the annual event and held Saudi Arabia responsible for the disaster.

Pirjan said the incident disgraced the Saudi Arabian rulers and demonstrated that the Saudis are incompetent to hold Hajj.

After several rounds of negotiation between Iranian and Saudis officials to hash out discrepancies over the hajj issue, Hajj and Pilgrimage Organization of Iran (HPOI) announced on May 29 that it won’t dispatch pilgrims this year to Mecca because of inconsistency at decision-making level by Saudis.

Iran and Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic ties as Riyadh’s diplomatic posts in Tehran and Mashhad were attacked in public mobs, following the Saudi execution of Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr in January.

NA/PA