Markaz trail widens, cases hit 2,000
FIR registered against organisers of event that flouted restrictions imposed during the 21-day lockdown TN, Telangana account for 2,000 people who might have visited Tablighi headquarters
NEW DELHI: The number of Covid-19 cases in India soared over 2,000 on Wednesday, fuelled largely by infections linked to a March event of the Tablighi Jamaat in the heart of Delhi that emerged this week as the biggest domestic source of the disease in the country.
According to a tally of numbers released by 25 states and union territories, close to 8,500 people have been identified as having been to the Islamic group’s headquarters in the capital’s Nizamuddin area, prompting authorities to intensify efforts to trace them since they may be carrying the virus and potentially infecting others.
This is in addition to the 2,346 people who have been evacuated from the Tablighi Jamaat’s sixstorey mosque complex – called a Markaz – in Delhi since Sunday, including 531 who have now been taken to hospitals as they showed symptoms of the disease.
In all, 358 confirmed Covid-19 cases across the country have been linked to the Markaz.
Covid-19 infections across the world crossed 900,000, with the United States, Italy, Spain and the UK now reporting the bulk of approximately 4,000 new daily fatalities.
In a video conference with the police and administration heads of the states, Union cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba asked all states to launch on “war footing” a contact tracing of all those who attended Tablighi Jamaat events in Delhi this month.
In a briefing later in the evening, the health ministry said the country recorded 392 new cases in a day – a surge that was driven by the infections among the Jamaat’s members. “I want to highlight that the rise in the number of positive cases does not represent a national trend, but if there will be a failure anywhere, obviously cases will rise,” said health ministry joint secretary Lav Agarwal, reiterating the need for people to follow social distancing guidelines and not violate the nationwide lockdown underway at present.
Over the weekend, officials discovered infections were multiplying at the Markaz after alerts began streaming in from other states where people who had been to the building had developed symptoms after heading out to other cities. At least nine of these people – six in Telangana and one each in Kashmir, Gujarat and Karnataka – have died due to the disease.
By 1pm on Wednesday, the Markaz was sanitised by sanitation workers in decontamination suits.
The workers said they found the insides of the building to be damp.
“We have sprayed every corner of the building, but its insides are damp due to the absence of sunlight. Usually the surfaces we have been spraying all these days were dry, so we don’t know how effective the disinfectant would be,” said Harish Kumar, a sanitation worker.
Kumar described the building as comprising mostly large halls, many of which had rows of beds spread out. “Rows and rows of mattresses were spread out in the halls, floor after floor,” he said.
Authorities may now begin an exercise to canvass the Nizamuddin area, a congested residential locality.