Thiruvananthapuram: With Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan asking the State Police to locate all those who have visited the Tablighi Jamaat in Nizamuddin in Delhi, around 300 of them have been identified from various parts of the state.
This is following reports of a cluster of infections that allegedly started at a congregation of Tablighi Jamaat in Nizamuddin, Delhi.
A late night press release from Telangana Chief Minister’s Office said that the state has recorded six deaths due to coronavirus. All of them had allegedly participated in a religious congregation of Tableeghi Jamat at Nizamuddin in New Delhi.
But of the 300 who took part in the prayer sessions, only 80 are deemed to have returned to Kerala, Vijayan said.
While over 200 took part in the first week, an estimated 80 are understood to have been there in the third week.
While there has been some reluctance on the part of those who have taken part to cooperate, the police are doing their best to find out by tracking the mobile numbers of such people.
Meanwhile around a dozen people who have been identified appear to be fine and have no symptoms of coronavirus, but the health authorities are leaving nothing to chance and have put them into isolation.
The congregation was held from March 13 to 15 - well before the countrywide lockdown was announced. Approximately 380 people from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were among those who attended the congregation. Now some have tested positive.
Tableeghi Jamat is an Islamic preachers’ organisation active in several countries specially in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Banglewali mosque in Nizamuddin in New Delhi is the national headquarter of the organisation.
The Markaz released a statement saying that visitors/guests/devotees/worshippers from across the globe "throng the place for pre- scheduled programs lasting for no more than 3-5 days. All the programmes are decided a year in advance in order to facilitate visitors from far-off places to plan their participation. When Hon’ble Prime Minister announced the 'Janta Curfew', for March 22, the ongoing programme in Markaz Nizamuddin was discontinued immediately, however due to sudden cancellation of rail services across the country on March 21, 2020, a large group of visitors who had to depart by way of railways got stuck in the Markaz premises."
- Inputs from IANS, Mohammad Siddique, Correspondent
