The tragic bus accident near Medina that claimed the lives of 45 Indian pilgrims from Telangana is not just an isolated incident on a foreign roadway. It forces us to confront a troubling reality: the growing scale of faith-based travel has not been matched by a commensurate commitment to safety, regulation, or transparency. Every year, millions undertake pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina in search of spiritual solace.

But the journey remains fraught with risks that are neither inevitable nor unavoidable. For the families in Hyderabad who sent off their loved ones with prayers, the news of the inferno that engulfed the bus has been shattering. The survivors’ accounts ~ few as they are ~ offer only fragments of what seems to have been a devastating collision involving an oil tanker. That so little is known about the exact chain of events points to a larger truth: the safety architecture around pilgrim transportation remains patchy, dispersed across........

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