The union ministry has asked all the state governments and police chiefs to trace and screen the Rohingya Muslims who attended the Tabhlighi Jamaat event at Nizamuddin. Around 26,000 members who attended the event have been quarantined and now the reports have stated that the Rohingya Muslims who attended the event, spread in different part of the country are missing. According to the intelligence report, the Rohingyas may have attended the congregation and have contracted COVID-19.
The Rohingya Muslims residing in the camps of Hyderabad and Telangana have attended the ‘Ijtema’ event in Haryana and have reported to attend the Markaz at Nizamuddin, New Delhi. The event was held on March 13 and is reported to have 1,306 foreigners from 41 countries which later became a hotspot for COVID-19. The refugees residing in the Shram Vihar near Shaheen Bagh, New Delhi have reported to attend the Tabhlighi event and have not returned to their camps after the event. According to the reports some of the Rohingyas have found to visit Derabassi area in Punjab and Jammu in Jammu Kashmir after the event.
The ministry said that there are around 40,000 Rohingya Muslims across the country and eight of them were quarantined last month who attended the Tabhlighi Jamaat congregation. Around 500 positive cases and 20 deaths were linked to the event. 2300 activists including 250 foreigners of the Islamic organisation were found to be living at Tabhlighi Headquarters located at Nizamuddin, New Delhi despite the nationwide lockdown. Atleast 9,000 people took part in the congregation last month; the participants included citizens of 41 nationalities –379 Indonesians, 110 Bangladeshi, 77 from Kyrgyzstan, 75 Malaysian, 65 Thai, 63 Myanmarese and 33 Sri Lankans.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has asked the states to keep this investigation on priority so that Rohingya Muslim and their contacts could be quarantined if found positive of coronavirus. The virus has claimed around 500 deaths and cases upto 14,000 across the country. The Delhi Police has registered case against seven people including the Tabhlighi Jamaat Markaz chief Mohammad Saad under the stringent sections on March 31 after violating the lockdown rules and have also been booked for violating Epidemic Diseases Act and the Disaster Management Act.
The MHA has blacklisted 960 foreigners and cancelled their visas and has identified around 9,000 Tabhlighi Jamaat workers who have been to headquarters in New Delhi. As over 22,500 Tabhlighi Jamaat contacts were found across the country, the states and union territories are now tracing the Rohingya Muslims refugees who have reported to attend the Haryana ‘Ijtema’ and Markaz event at Nizamuddin, New Delhi.
