Prime Minister Narender Modi at the BJP Parliamentry Party meeting, during the on-going winter session of Parliament in New Delhi on Thursday. Pic/PTI

In a bid to empower Muslim women, the government has changed the law by permitting them to travel for the annual Haj pilgrimage without any male attendant, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday. "I noticed that if a Muslim woman wanted to go for the Haj pilgrimage, they cannot go without a 'Mahram' (a male guardian)," Modi said in 2017's last edition of his radio programme 'Mann Ki Baat'. "And when I enquired about it, I came to know that it was we who have have restricted them for going alone for the Haj. This practice is not followed in many of the Islamic countries," he said.