Madhya Pradesh and Bengal finally get cracking on participants

Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal have made considerable progress in tracking down those who attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Nizamuddin in Delhi last month as well those who came in touch with them.
While MP has identified all the 36 from the state who were part of the gathering, it has also quarantined 65 of the foreign nationals. Bhopal’s district collector Tarun Pithode told ET that the foreign nationals had already finished their mandated stay in quarantine, but the government was being cautious and had asked them to stay in isolation. “All the 36 from MP who were part of Tablighi Jamaat are in New Delhi. We are coordinating with the Delhi administration,” he said.

Nearly 107 people from Madhya Pradesh and about 73 from West Bengal are believed to have participated in the Tablighi Jamaat programme in Delhi. Officials said the people in MP had come from Malaysia, Indonesia and Burma at three different mosques in areas around Bagh Farhat Afza and Jehangirabad in Bhopal. “We have already asked all districts to inform us of any other jamaat living in their areas,” said Pithode.

The districts of Burhanpur, Gwalior and Bhopal are believed to be areas where the participants could have visited, according to officials. Pravin Jadia, chief medical officer in Indore, said the city has recorded around 63 positive cases, but all have to do with family members with travel history. “We have requested all Muslim social leaders in this area to convince people in the community to come for testing if they have the symptoms,” he said.

An official in MP also said that this year, the number of participants from the state at the Nizammudin Markaz was not more than 200.

"In 2017, there was a grand event in Bhopal where Mohammed Sa'ad who heads the Nizammudin markaz had talked about his centre becoming the most important pilgrimage for Muslims, after Mecca and Medina. The Jamaat members of Bhopal had opposed such a claim, as it was not as per Prophet Mohammed's teachings. There has been some friction with the Delhi group since then," he added.

While the southern states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu were among the first to start tracking down the participants of the Tablighi Jamaat programme, which is being linked to more than 300 Covid-19 cases in the country, other states started scaling up the process in the past few days.

West Bengal has traced 50 participants through its Haj committees spread across the state. Around 73 foreign nationals, including some from Bangladesh, are believed to have attended the Delhi event. The administration has mobilised its Haj committees, which are in touch with the heads of mosques across the state.

Shafique Qasmi, member of the West Bengal Haj Committee, told ET that the committees had reached out to all mosques in the state, particularly in Muslim areas, asking them to track the details of the travel history of the people in their areas. “Fifty people came for testing today. This will increase as we are reaching out to more people. We have also asked them to give us any information they have,” he said.

Two persons infected with coronavirus have died in West Bengal, taking the total number of Covid-19 deaths in the state to six, a health department official said on Wednesday.

Kolkata’s commissioner of police, Anuj Sharma, said the administration had identified and shifted around 54 persons to quarantine on Tuesday. “We are working on all inputs to find the whereabouts of any remaining persons who need to be quarantined,” he said.

Firhad Haki, mayor of Kolkata, said the administration was on top of the case, and was handling the issue carefully. “We are reaching out to people to tell them to follow the lockdown. Everyone cannot be in cramped houses all the time… We are constantly telling them to maintain social distancing even if they are sitting on railway tracks… be on their smart phones, play ludo, not gossip with each other,” he said.