At least 30% of total cases in country tied to Jamaat event
Officials say a few attendees turned out to be super spreaders
nNEW DELHI: At least 1,445 of 4,780 Covid-19 cases in India are linked to a congregation held last month in Delhi at Tablighi Jamaat’s headquarters that has since emerged as a hot spot of the disease, the Union health ministry said on Monday as state governments continued to warn of strict action against those who attended the gathering but have failed to report for testing.
Officials in states like Odisha and Madhya Pradesh said a few attendees have turned out to be super-spreaders of the disease. A person, who attended a congregation in Bhopal where certain attendees of the Jamaat congregation in Delhi were also present, spread the virus to 18 members of his family and turned a housing society in Bhuvaneshwar into a Covid-19 hotspot, according to an Odisha health official.
A person, who attended the Jamaat event in Delhi, is believed to have spread the disease to another 16, who attended the Bhopal congregation, including the Covid-19 positive person from Bhuvaneshwar, according to an official of the Bhopal district administration.
Three people linked to the Jamaat have been identified in Uttarkhand for having spread the disease to another 28 in the state. “All [28] persons tested positive for Covid-19 did not attend the Nizamuddin [Delhi] congregation [of Jamaat]. Many of them got the virus from the attendees,” said a Uttarakhand health department official, who did not wish to be named. As on Monday, 708 people in the state have been found to have been linked to the Delhi congregation.
The Union home ministry said at least 25,500 Jamaat followers and people who came into their contact have been quarantined across India. “In Haryana, five villages have been sealed after it was found that some foreign nationals linked to the Jamaat had stayed in those villages,” said Union home ministry joint secretary Punya Salila Srivastava.
Tamil Nadu recorded 50 fresh positive cases on Monday. They include 48 people, who had attended the Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi last month, state health secretary Beela Rajesh said. A total of 621 people in the state have tested positive for Covid-19 while four have died.
The Assam government on Monday warned Jamaat followers to report to authorities or face legal action. Health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said action will be taken under the Disaster Management Act, which provides for up to two years in prison. Except for one, all other 25
Covid-19 positive cases detected in the state are linked to the Jamaat congregation in Delhi.
“After receiving data from different sources, we had to trace 617 persons from Assam who attended the [Delhi] event and had since returned to the state. We have been able to collect samples from 491 of them while 128 are yet to be located,” Sarma said.
Of the 278 Covid-19 positive cases in Uttar Pradesh, 138 are linked to the Delhi event, said additional chief secretary (home) Awanish Kumar Awasthi. He added police have identified 1,499 Jamaat members and quarantined 1,205 of them. Awasthi said their samples were being sent for tests.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said the Covid-19 cases in the national capital had reached 523. They include 330 linked to Jamaat.
The Gujarat police on Monday said they have so far identified and traced 126 people from the state, who had attended the Delhi congregation of the Jamaat.
Around 12 of them have tested positive. Gujarat has so far reported more than 140 Covid-19 cases and 12 deaths.
A case was registered against 16 people, including seven minors, associated with Tablighi Jamaat in Chhattisgarh’s Korba district on Monday for allegedly hiding their travel history and resisting medical screening, police said. A 16-year-old boy, who tested positive for Covid-19 on April 4 and is admitted to a hospital in Raipur, is among them, they said.
Authorities at the Narela Quarantine Facility in New Delhi have approached the police against some Tablighi Jamaat attendees for allegedly misbehaving with sanitation and health Staff. As per the complaint, two persons allegedly defecated in the corridor area of the facility.
Meanwhile, an FIR has also been registered against some of the attendees admitted to the LNJP Hospital in Delhi for allegedly spitting towards the Operation Theatre.
RSS TAKES CRITICISES TABLIGHI JAMAAT
The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh on Monday in an attack on the Tablighi Jamaat said the organisers should have been “sensible” and called off the congregation in Delhi’s Nizamuddin.
Addressing the media via video-conferencing, joint general secretary of the RSS Manmohan Vaidya said: “The spread of the virus has definitely increased because of the event Tablighi Jamaat organised in the capital… If their leadership would have taken a decision and cancelled it on time it would have been good.