34 Bhopal cops test positive for Covid-19, officials blame Tablighi Jamaat event

A top police official believes the virus entered the force after police personnel went on a search for those with links to Tablighi Jamaat in Bhopal.

File photo | Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan at a meeting with senior officials regarding quarantine of Tablighi Jamaat attendees, in Bhopal on 1 April | ANI

Bhopal: Thirty-four police personnel, including some officers, have tested coronavirus positive in Bhopal so far, a top official said on Thursday.

The official claimed that as per the findings, the initial infections in the city’s police force were caused when the personnel went out in search of those who had returned to the state capital after attending the Tablighi Jamaat congregation at Delhi’s Nizamuddin held last month.

“With a policeman in our cyber cell testing coronavirus positive this morning, 34 of our personnel, including officers, have been infected so far,” Bhopal Additional Director General of Police, Upendra Jain, told PTI.

Besides them, around 30 of their family members have also contracted the infection, he added.

In order to curb the spread of the virus and to keep their family members safe, around 2,100 police personnel in the city are not going homes after their duty hours.

“They have been put up in hotels and provided PPE kits, sanitisers and food,” he added.

“After an analysis, we came to know that the virus found its way into the police force when our personnel went out to search for the people who had come to Bhopal after attending the congregation of Tablighi Jamaat in Delhi last month,” Jain said.

“As per the findings, there was no other source initially, except the Nizamuddin attendees, from whom they could have contracted the infection. The police went to the mosques under Jahangirabad and Ashbagh police stations towards the end of last month to look for the attendees,” he said.

Already 30-35 Jamaat members, including foreigners, who had come from Delhi, had tested coronavirus positive, Jain said.

He, however, said that all the policemen were not infected due to the Nizamuddin attendees.

“One of them contracted the infection as he was part of a medical team visiting homes to check the virus spread. A few others got infected in the containment areas and during the general duty, but the virus crept into police force through the Nizamuddin attendees,” he said.

“No policemen or their family member affected by the virus had history of travel abroad,” Jain said.