19 foreign Tablighis booked in Nagpur and Chandrapur

NAGPUR: There is more trouble in store for Tablighi Jamaat members. The police here have booked 19 foreigners who were part of the overseas teams of the sect and were on a visit to Nagpur and Chandrapur. Two translators from Tamil Nadu and Assam who were accompanying them have been booked too. All of them had been to Nizamuddin Markaz but before the event that led to furore.At any given time the Markaz has 2,000 to 4,000 visitors, said a source in the sect.
They are charged with violating the Foreigners Act and the visa conditions by undertaking religious preaching while being in India on a tourist visa.
These include eight Myanmar nationals who were in Nagpur and another group 11 in Chandrapur. All of them have been quarantined. Offences have also been registered against them for breaching the curfew and causing risk to others, under the IPC.
The action in Nagpur has been taken by the Tehsil police station. The investigating officer PI Jayesh Bhandarkar told TOI the reason was that despite being on a tourist visa they were living in a mosque. Another senior officer dealing with foreign citizens agreed they were also found preaching.
The group from Myanmar includes four men and four women. The women were living in local contacts’ homes while the men stayed in mosques.
The group of 11 in Chandrapur has eight from Kyrgyzstan, one Kazakh national and two from Russia. According to the police’s records, the group had come from Delhi to Chandrapur on March 2 and had been meeting people by visiting 10 different mosques.
Despite orders prohibiting any assembly including religious events, the group continued meeting people and was engaged in religious preaching. This, the police claim, is violation of Section 14 of the Foreigners Act. The activities continued till March 29. The group is alleged to have toured different parts of Chandrapur district along with two translators, Jabbar Khijar Basha and Bahar-ul-Ajafuddin, from Tamil Nadu and Assam. The duo has been booked too.
Abdul Bari Patel, secretary of Jamaat’s Nagpur and Chhattisgarh wings said, Jamaat will be cooperating with the authorities. Even in normal course every visit of foreign members is promptly reported to the special branch. “The purpose of the visit is to understand the Muslim culture in India for which they stay in mosques, and no activity like propagating religion is carried out,” he said.
The Jamaat members from Myanmar had come to Nagpur on March 7 and were supposed to stay till April 7.
Advocate Firdaus Mirza said merely visiting a religious place cannot be termed breach of visa conditions. Although preaching a certain religion can be an offence. However, this has to be an attempt to convince people of other faith to convert. Discussion among co-religionists cannot be treated as religious preaching.