New Delhi: The Ministry of Home Affairs has written to all states and union territories to test Rohingya Muslims in the country, after it was found that many of them attended Tablighi Jamaat events in Delhi and Haryana, ThePrint has learnt.
In the letter written to state chief secretaries, director generals of police and commissioners, the deputy secretary of the central government said there was a high possibility of Rohingyas being infected with Covid-19.
“It has been reported that Rohingya Muslims have attended Ijtemas and other religious congregations of Tablighi Jamaat and there is a possibility of their contracting Covid-19,” the letter said.
The letter stated that Rohingyas residing in camps in Hyderabad, Telangana, had attended the Tablighi Jamaat Ijtema in Haryana’s Mewat, and also visited the Nizamuddin Markaz in New Delhi. It also cited reports of Rohingya Muslims, who attended the Tabligh Jamaat event in Delhi, were living in Dera Bassi, Punjab, and Jammu area of Jammu and Kashmir.
Also read: How Tablighi Jamaat was born from Mewat’s ‘drinking Muslims who couldn’t even read namaz’
The letter also directs officials to trace and test Rohingya’s living in Shram Vihar, Shaheen Bagh, who had attended the Tablighi Jamaat event last month but did not return home after.
“Therefore Rohingya Muslims and their contacts need to be screened for COVID19 … Accordingly, necessary measures may be taken in this regard on priority,” the letter says.
The Tablighi Jamaat made headlines after a congregation it held last month resulted in the mass spread of the highly infectious Covid-19 disease. The congregation had thousands in attendance, including foreigners from South Asia, making the event the largest known vector for the novel coronavirus in the region.
In the national capital itself, over 1,080 of the 1,640 cases are related to it, according to the latest health bulletin by the Delhi government, which categorised the cases as ‘special operations’.
Across India, 1,023 of the total cases were linked to the Tablighi Jamaat as of April 5, according to the health ministry.
Also read: Delhi’s Nizamuddin — a bustling blend of history and spirituality, until Covid-19 struck