Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal ordered a police case against the Markaz Nizamuddin mosque administration over negligence that has endangered hundreds of lives.
New Delhi| A gathering at a mosque held in mid-March in Nizamuddin West has emerged as the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak not just in parts of the region now put under strict lockdown, but in Telangana, which announced Monday five Covid-19 related deaths of persons who were part of this gathering.
It is also being linked to cases in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Andaman islands, Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh.
Early this morning, the Markaz Nizamuddin – the Delhi headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat — was sealed and 850 people moved out in buses are quarantined in different parts of the city.
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal yesterday ordered a police case against the mosque administration over negligence that has endangered hundreds of lives.
Ignoring all social distancing rules to avoid the deadly coronavirus, hundreds had been staying in the 100-year-old mosque complex, which has a six-floor dormitory, since a two-day gathering of the Tablighi Jamaat earlier this month. Tablighi Jamaat is an Islamic missionary movement set up in 1926, with members across the world.
“There are several foreign travellers who visit the complex for gatherings and prayer. We suspect the infection was first brought in by them,” said a senior health department official, asking not to be named.
Of the 25 new cases of COVID-19 reported from Delhi on Monday, 18 are from Nizamuddin West. The total number of confirmed cases in Delhi now stands at 97.
The gathering, which featured sermons, was attended by Tablighi members from Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Nepal, Myanmar, Kyrgyzstan and Saudi Arabia. Members had also come from Afghanistan, Algeria, Djibouti, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, England, Fiji, France and Kuwait.
Many of those who attended then travelled to other parts of the country. The Indonesians, for instance, went to southern states like Telangana.
The Srinagar preacher who died last week had visited the Deoband seminary in Uttar Pradesh and on his return to Kashmir, held multiple gatherings.
Contact tracing from the mosque gathering, which has been identified as a virus hotspot, has been given high priority by the home ministry, according to sources.
“We have been doing contact tracing of everyone who visited this masjid but it’s a humungous task,” a senior functionary of the government discloses.
According to him, Home Minister Amit Shah is being briefed daily about the developing situation.
“After one patient died in Srinagar and some in Hyderabad, an SOS was sent to various states,” he adds.
Eight of these people, including seven who went to Hyderabad and one who went to Srinagar, have succumbed to the disease. The Hyderabad deaths took place on Monday.
All of them had been to the building in Nizamuddin – also referred to as a markaz — which shares a boundary with the police station and is close to the famous Nizamuddin Auliya shrine.
Shortly after, the district surveillance officer went to the area to screen people for symptoms and collect their samples. “Yesterday we got back the reports and six people had tested positive. Now our officers are there screening everyone in the area, anyone with symptoms is being taken to various hospitals. The operation will go on all night long,” said Dr Nutan Mundeja, Delhi’s director general of health services.
As officials began clearing the building slowly, the number of people showing symptoms for Covid-19 had risen to 188 by Monday evening and authorities expected around 300 more with a cough, fever or respiratory distress.
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Till now, the most serious instances of the disease spread in India have been in large local clusters — such as the groups infected in Rajasthan’s Bhilwara, Maharashtra’s Sangli and in Punjab’s Banga. The patients linked to the Tablighi Jamaat have fanned out across the country, in some instances infecting locals, raising the spectre of having triggered community transmission.
Tablighi members reportedly told the police about the congregation on March 24. At the time, there were around 1,200 people inside the mosque complex. A day later, they were taken to the airport by the police.
But on March 26, two days into the national lockdown ordered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, people started gathering again. There were close 2,000 by the time the police found out. They were asked to stay put and not go anywhere as all transport had been cancelled.
Some 280 of those inside were foreigners.
Yesterday, 200 people were taken to hospitals with symptoms of COVID-19.
In a statement, Markaz Nizamuddin defended itself saying the event was cancelled when PM Modi announced the “Janata Curfew” for March 22. “However, due to sudden cancellation of rail services across the country on March 21, a large group of visitors who had to depart by way of railways got stuck in the Markaz premises,” the statement claimed. After that, it said, lockdowns ordered first by the Delhi government and then by the PM made it “impossible” for the stranded visitors to stay anywhere but in the Markaz.
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