The police in Delhi and Mumbai on Tuesday registered cases against several members of the Tablighi Jamaat linked to a religious event held at Nizamuddin in Delhi last month that later emerged as a Covid-19 infection hotspot.
The Delhi Police has registered two cases against a few members for their alleged misconduct in various quarantine centres in the Capital, according to Hindustan Times.
A case was registered against two Jamaat members from Barabanki in Uttar Pradesh, after the sanitation staff of a quarantine centre in Narela area of Delhi accused them of defecating in front of their rooms.
“A sanitation worker and the Housekeeping Supervisor reported the incident,” the first information report stated, according to PTI. “ The persons residing in the room are the suspects for the act, they did not follow the instructions of the health department and government to prevent the spread of the virus. The men put the life of others at risk by jeopardising the entire containment measure.”
Another case was registered after officials at the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan hospital in central Delhi accused some Tablighi Jamaat members of spitting in the hospital premises. “It was reported that some Covid-19 suspected persons who have been quarantined on the third floor of the hospital’s Emergency building were spitting on the southern side towards the operation theatre,” an unidentified doctor from the hospital told Hindustan Times.
Meanwhile, Mumbai’s civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation, has filed a complaint against 150 members of the Tablighi Jamaat for their alleged negligence in containing the outbreak. The case was registered under sections 269 and 271 of the Indian Penal Code pertaining to wilful negligence that is likely to spread infections, and disobedience of quarantine rule.
The first information report was lodged a day after the Mumbai Police requested members of the Tablighi Jamaat in the city to approach the civic body themselves and inform them of their recent travel history. “Those failing to cooperate will face strict action under Indian Penal Code, the Disaster Management Act and the Epidemic Act,” the Mumbai Police tweeted.
More than 1,000 positive cases of coronavirus in India have been linked to the religious congregation. Thousands of Indians and hundreds of foreigners had attended a Tablighi Jamaat conference on March 9 and 10. Many also fanned out across the country to recruit people after this, raising concerns about the scale of the potential spread of infection at the conference. The health ministry on Sunday said that the religious gathering had pushed up the doubling rate of cases in India to 4.1 days from the estimated 7.4 days.
The number of novel coronavirus cases in the country rose to 4,421 on Tuesday morning, and the toll increased to 114, according to health ministry figures.
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