Tablighi Jamaat Caused COVID-19 Spread Among ‘Many Persons’: Home Ministry to Rajya Sabha

Union Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply that Delhi Police arrested 233 Tablighi Jamaat members and 2,361 people have been evacuated from the organisation's headquarters since March 29.

New Delhi: Tablighi Jamaat, the Islamic sect gathering that was held in the month of March in Delhi’s Nizamuddin Markaz, was the reason coronavirus infection spread to “many persons” in India, the Union Home Ministry claimed during Rajya Sabha session on Monday.

Union Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply that Delhi Police arrested 233 Tablighi Jamaat members and 2,361 people have been evacuated from the organisation’s headquarters since March 29. The Jamaat chief, Maulana Mohd Saad, was also held by the police but the investigation is underway regarding his role in the spread of the pandemic.

“As reported by Delhi Police, despite guidelines and orders issued by various authorities in pursuance of the outbreak of COVID-19, a huge gathering assembled inside closed premises over a protracted period of time and without any semblance of social distancing or provision of masks and sanitisers. This also caused the spread of Coronavirus infection amongst many persons,” the minister said.

The Tablighi Jamaat took place in mid-March just as lockdown restrictions to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic were kicking in in the national capital. The event later turned into a COVID-19 hotspot as thousands of attendees, both present in east Delhi’s Markaz-where the event took place-and those who had left before the gathering came to light, were found positive for coronavirus.

In particular, the attendees who had left the complex and gone to different parts of the country were the ones said to have taken the infection with them, thus transmitting it to others.

The Narendra Modi government banned 2,550 foreigners, who attended the Markaz event, from entering India for the next 10 years.