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irport authorities in East and Central Java last week confiscated pebbles that would-be haj pilgrims put in their luggage to be used in the stoning of the devil ritual, fearing that there wouldn’t be enough rocks in Mecca for every one of the millions of pilgrims, media reports said.

In Surabaya’s Juanda International Airport, security officers confiscated a sack of pebbles that pilgrims from Gresik hid inside their luggage but authorities detected at the X-ray check point. They also found a cobek (a stone mortar and pestle used to prepare seasoning) and cooking utensils inside hand luggage, detik.com reported.

At Adisumarmo Airport in Surakarta (or Solo), stones were also seized by security officers who became suspicious when the X-ray machine showed “strange objects” inside some travelers’ hand luggage.

In Solo airport authorities also seized prohibited objects such as scissors, nails, knives, honey, ketchup and body lotion.

A haj pilgrim needs between 49 and 70 pebbles for the devil-stoning ritual during the pilgrimage, depending on how many days he/she stays at Mina, near Mecca. The stones are all made available by Saudi authorities.

Syarif Hidayat, a spokesperson for Surakarta haj transportation affairs, said that cases of haj travelers carrying dangerous objects in their hand luggage had significantly declined every year.

Many pilgrims would have put certain personal effects in their baggage and not carried them into the cabin, he said.