TJ members test positive, Pak locks Raiwind

Lahore, April 2: Pakistan authorities have placed the entire city of Raiwind under quarantine, shutting down all general and medical stores, and completely restricted the mobility of people within or outside the city after at least 40 Tablighi Jamaat preachers tested positive, officials said on Thursday.

Similarly, some 50 members of the Jamaat, including five Nigerian women, suspected to be carriers of Covid-19, are admitted to a quarantine centre in Kasur, some 50 kms from Lahore. In Hyderabad city of Sindh province, 38 Covid19 cases of local transmission among members of the Tablighi Jamaat were reported on Thursday.

There are reports that the Sindh and Punjab police have picked some members of the Jamaat from the mosques and its Raiwind Markaz (headquarters of the Pakistani faction of Jamaat) and locked up in the police stations in connection with violation of the lockdown.

According to the government, in March the Tablighi Jamaat went ahead with its annual congregation in Raiwind, Lahore against its ‘advice' that the gathering might spread the virus.

Pakistani authorities had urged the cancellation of the five-day Tablighi congregation, which was attended by thousands of people from several countries. “The government’s apprehensions stood true as several Tablighi Jamaat activists have tested positive for Covid-19 and they caused spread of it,” Lahore Deputy Commissioner Danish Afzaal said in a statement. “The health teams have so far sent samples of around 110 of them for lab analysis and of them 41 preachers have been tested positive for Covid-19,” he said.

— AFP A pedestrian wearing a mask as a precautionary measure against Covid-19, walks past closed-down shops on an empty Regent Street in London on Thursday, as life in Britain continues during the nationwide lockdown to combat the pandemic.