The good news — coverage — was too good to last so it had to turn ugly.
The Tablighi Jamaat coronavirus scare presented news channels with the ideal opportunity to bare the fangs they had momentarily withdrawn last week. “In the battle against corona, Jamaat has dealt a bloody blow,” hollered ABP News. “Save the country from corona jihad,” demanded the Sudarshan headline with the anchor raising a clenched fist, “act strongly against corona jihad”. “In the name of religion, they have put our lives at risk,” warned Zee News. The Tuesday evening anchor then accused the Jamaat of taking India into the third stage of the coronavirus infection.
“Yes Markaz spiked the numbers”, “Ban Taliban Tablighi, chorus grows,” announced Times Now Wednesday evening.
Arnab Goswami on Republic TV said it was a “deliberate” attempt to undermine “my country”. He then let his guests yell at each other in a free fall.
Deepak Chaurasia (News Nation) was apoplectic with rage, his eyes screwed up as he demanded answers —
“jawab” – from Anzar Raza, the guest on his show, as though he had spread the coronavirus himself. Aam Aadmi Party’s Saurabh Bhardwaj told him to calm down and not treat the pandemic like just any other political issue.
Times Now called it “Markaz mayhem” and accused the Arvind Kejriwal government of not dealing with the “super spreaders” inside the Nizamuddin centre, because of “appeasement”.
And so it went on and on, from one channel to another.
Also read: Coronavirus was a test of secular nationalism. Then Tablighi Jamaat became the scapegoat
The biggest story
Tuesday evening, audio tapes appeared on many channels such as CNN News18, Times Now, Zee News and Republic TV implicating Maulana Masood, the head of the centre. By Wednesday evening, videos emerged of a 23-March meeting of the Nizamuddin police with the Markaz officials in which they were warned to leave the premises (CNN News18). You hear one of the Markaz individuals say they can’t go home because of state-sealed borders….
As if this was not scary enough, news channels put out maps of India with red tags appearing across its length and breadth to indicate the destination of individuals who had gone home after their stay at the Nizamuddin Markaz. If the intention was to cause those of us sitting at home panic attacks, the news channels had more than succeeded.
With a display of its normal single-minded and simple-minded focus, TV news channels were determined to blame the Tablighi Jamaat for “Corona bomb” as ABP called it, in what India TV described at “Ek Maulana 9 shahar”. Which would have been fine had they also fixed some responsibility for what is now the “biggest manhunt” (Times Now) across India for those who fanned out from Nizamuddin — on other state authorities.
Also read: Aaj Tak’s Sardana says don’t mix ‘dharm’ and ‘bimaari’ & Dharavi casualty worries Sardesai
Some tough questions
Luckily, some channels tried for a more rational approach: Sandeep Choudhary of News 24 asked tough questions of the Modi government and the BJP. He looked at the “chronology” of events, pointing out that many temples, including Kashi Vishwanath, were open till 20 March and Parliament was working till 23 March. He questioned the politics of “dharma” and calling out only the Tablighi Jamaat.
ABP News pointed out, in a report by Indrajeet Rai, that the Nizamuddin Police station was just 50 metres away from the Tablighi Jamaat—it was “right under their nose” — what were they (the police) doing?
On India Today, Gaurav Sawant said there were questions to be asked of the Delhi government, the police, and Modi government too on how people from other countries were allowed into the country and to stay on at the Nizamuddin centre.
Also read: Tablighi Jamaat scare: Arnab calls it deliberate, ‘whole country in danger’ says Liyaquat
Entertainment, entertainment, entertainment
Meanwhile, the condition of the thousands of migrant workers has been all but forgotten.
Instead, news channels have tried to provide us with some comic relief from the “dharma drama” (News X). This has taken several forms: comedian Sunil Grover appeared on News Nation and India Today – he did a perfect imitation of Salman Khan on the latter; Armaan Malik strummed his guitar and sang on CNN News18 as anchor Anand Narasimhan tried to keep up with the beat; there was ‘Antakshari’ on Aaj Tak between the anchors and guests; Vikrant Gupta and Shweta Singh entertained themselves Monday evening in a singalong, asking viewers to send in their videos; News Nation hosted singer Anoop Jalota while India Ahead featured Bollywood stars’ home work; ABP brought us ‘Nanhe Bigg Boss’ every afternoon featuring the antics of young children at home.
“Your entertainment is also our responsibility,” proclaimed News 18 India, in lofty tones.
Now, if only they entertained without spooking us….
Views are personal.
If that’s true what our intelligence is doing what police is doing why they allowed other countries pool to join markaz …u have them passage n allowed first then virus issue came just u want to blame someone like scapegoat markaz ppl r soft target …mediai is pro modi n pro nrc …this was high time to blame one community…they were silently singing songs till 23 tomarch suddenly they got a solid evidence abt markaz…this nationalist n paid media n modi twitter army is just using it as weapon against muslims…
If that’s true what our intelligence is doing what police is doing why they allowed other countries pool to join markaz …u have them passage n allowed first then virus issue came just u want to blame someone like scapegoat markaz ppl r soft target …mediai is pro modi n pro nrc …this was high time to blame one community…they were silently singing songs till 23 tomarch suddenly they got a solid evidence abt markaz…this nationalist n paid media n modi twitter army is just using it as weapon against muslims…
Looks like a true jamaati wrote this you guys are sit and propoganda factory against India same on you .
#same
Looks like a true jamaati wrote this you guys are sit and propoganda factory against India same on you .
We all believe in our leader , Modi…
Laughable, biased, anti-national reporting..!!!
All tabligis along with their defenders are traitors..!!!!
Deplorable ,false , shameless narrative…
Lets fight corona…!!!!!
Comments seems to be from BJP it cell comment bots.
Arnab is right . There is some media ummmm better to say congregation of rejected and retired journalists . They have only one job that is to criticize Modi and they are ready to stoop at any level. India will win and those congregation of corona will die and obliterate forever.
Shame on you to support tablighi jamaat mistakes, if TV channels not exposed the reality, we would have missed the truth, and we would be able to control the pandemic at its budding in the country if tablighi jamaat acted with good intentions and responsibility, tabligi jamaat failed to spread goodness of Islam, instead it’s encouraging negative things of islam
Shame on you too for being blind in one eye!
Dear educated fellow Indians,
Try to understand the situation of people.
Those people gathered as usual every month,year before the travel restrictions came into effect. All were outsiders. With less delhites. Foreigner Jo aye tey udr airport ke thru aye…. In India first case detected on Jan 30, Covid problem ko kam smj kr rehgaye…. Phir cases badrahe toh ban came in effect….. Aise mei jamat mei kuch log as usual idr udr nikal gaye aur travel restrictions ke waja se kuch hazar log andr hi rehgaye…. aur wo jo bahar nikal gaye wo log apne ghr ni toh koi aur masjid ko hi jate hain… na ki virus ku lekr har road ka admi ku jaan boochke virus ni pehlarin … Infact if u know they are not even knowing if they had contracted virus with them….u are simply blaming those gathered there to blame the spread of sudden virus’cases.
Telengana reported Central gov about the possibility of virus contraction in jamat premises bcos it had jamat cases on march 18.
The central gov and delhi gov remained silent,
Police station near by jamat premises was silent,
It’s also making me think that officials just wanted to spread virus inside jamat premises until it came out big
Virus symptoms are available only after 20 days of contracting so in such cases march 1st week mei hi virus pehlna shuru hogya tha jamat premises mei bcos man is virus producing and virus carrying machine. Ye in insan ko mloom ni thaaa…. It’s bcos of their less intelligence not bcos of anything.. march 1st week mei India mei sab kuch normal hi thaa yani government ws clear with its stand.
If something failed it’s government method to create awareness at that point of time, government doesn’t know 3000 people assembled in Delhi markaz , police never notified them ?? How to evacuate them ? Poor management , labors of diff states ko kisa sambhala jaye ye ni ptaa gov ko….Questions are many ,
Don’t always blindly follow What media shows, try to understand people, these guys who had contracted virus are not transmitting by knowing , they and their families are real sufferers.
If some media questions Modi that is journalism and unbiased. If some media questions congregation of 9000 people over a two weeks period during the period when prohibitory orders were in place in Delhi from March 12 is biased. Also questions what happened in various temples and they are not questioned. Tabliqui is largest congregation and visited by foreigners carrying virus and spread the entire community. Now we can see that almost 30% of the positive cases are from Tabliqui related. So far, there is no such spread from any temple or church, except on Gurudwara congregation tasted positive and death of one member, purely due to their foreign travel. Absolutely BS article.
Is this journalism or personal diary.Who cares about your personal opinion? Being productive is need of time whats the point in pathological opinion. It is only going to destroy you.The brotherhood in crime will take to you hell.
Paid media..
Fake news..
Propagandalists..
Shamefully speaking baseless lies…
Everybody can see the truth madam
Stop trying hard in cooking up false stories
Everything is transparent for everyone except for #liberals, #azaadi gang, #communalists..
True!
This lady journalist is being paid by Jamat people to defame Indian TV channels. Shame on her.
You guys are worse than the people who were in the markaz. Ok fine they violated the norms and held a gathering, even if we ignore that, what is your justification for all the misbehavior with police, nurses and doctors??
What is the reason for no cooperation on the treatment?
I will not be surprised if I hear from you guys that they are doing a non cooperation movement like Gandhiji did!!
You guys can stoop down to any extent to demean the current government, but remember people don’t have anything to do at home now and the only thing we are doing is watching these bastards doing all this nonsense. No one is getting spared…
When people struck in mandir they stranded, and when people were struck in masjid they were hiding. Is this you bastard’s(you force me to use this word for you) ideology, then fuvk off you and your media.
Someone did not use any words and you reply with such words. Did anyone die from mandir or church congregations? 30% of positives cases are from Tabliqui. We have crossed 3000 positive cases and if Tabliqui would not have happened, imagine the number of cases would have been still lower than 2000. Have some positives, rather than using your expletives.
That’s the irony the print is talking about the fangs. We are seeing you for past years. Don’t worry.
Check, the peaceful community members celebrating corona entry in India.
They are teaching how to spread virus.
They are attacking on medical staff & police.
Still gathering in mass for prayer.
Still u want us to close our eyes?
The point is agreed that many others did not follow social distancing guidelines, are not doing so even today in markets and all.
But neither Kashi Vishwanath nor the Parliament had thousands of attendees who spread throughout the country and now will cause potentially thousands of new cases by infecting others.
Yes all who do not follow the rules are wrong, but if your disobedience has caused more trouble to everyone, naturally you will be blamed comparatively more.
Either the author is afraid of siding with the truth or a paid one.About Print It’s better not to say as it is against the establishment itself.
Now by mar 20 many groups were gathering around. Kashi etc etc. But tat was the time wen nobody had taken quarantine seriously. But wat followed after is important. All people should report themselves. Tat is responsibility. We can’t see tik tok around nothing happens if we pray to God. Poeple
Much expected from the PRINT.
PRO CONGRESS NEWS PAPER
Absolutely idiotic reporting.
In a situation like this, when the entire world is Struggling to cope up with a deadly pandemic, and the cover doing the best it can to ensure protection to the nation without any discrimination, these fanatic morons have done their part, whit that audacity to defy. These men should be taken to task .
What sort of journalism can one expect from a utterly biased media .The back ground and anecdotes is completely in harmony with their style of reporting. Surprisingly how some stupids are even supporting or justifying the Tablighi jamat @ Nijamuddin where almost whole nation is behind PM for his untiring and honest efforts to arrest the community spread of dreaded virus . Why should innocent law abiding majority suffer from the folly of few scoundrels irrespective of what religion they follow . Have these fools got any sense of responsibility towards our nation ? Why are they in different page altogether? Their motive is very clear. Why would someone who has some burning nationalism at heart tolerate some behaviours ? Why are the spineless stupid film personalities and left inclined intolerance brigade are silent on such grave national issue? They are like parasites who don’t like India but wouldn’t be leaving India either. These ppl obviously take fancy of India bashing TV channels and particular medias where their favourite paid presstitutes/anchors give them solidarity to embolden them with false narratives for radicalism with tacit support’. India at some point of time may need to take stringent action to treat the anti national radicalised elements and paid preachers .
Do you “The Print” think otherwise? After seeing and hearing what the jamaatis are up to in the midst of the chaos caused by the pandemic it is only appropriate if we expected you to fall in line with the said media outlets you pointed out herein in showing the bare truth to your audience. This only shows how fragile and twisted you’re. But of course we know which side of the fence you come from.
Govt. Should Ban Tablighi Jamaat ..
Most people don’t know that 99% of Indian Muslims don’t believe the Tablighi ideals and thier orthodoxy. For that reason they think they should campaign door to door to preach their orthosoxy . They have a belief that many muslims should eat in a same plate at a time to spread brotherhood among them .. single handedly this mistake became the reason they committed the crime to spread such a risk to the nation . Fully Tablighi is to be accountable for thier act .. and other muslims should not feel offensive that all the muslims are being targeted here .. only the Tablighi should be hold responsible .. They are not followed by 99%muslims for their blind belief of preaching orthodoxy ideals .
Author seems to be apologist of Tabiqk jamath…..what a bad defence of a communal outfit! shocking…in the name of secularism blaming the main stream media by those who have been ousted from it for their fake news for decades
Look who is talking.. the most poisonous and no matter what hamara agenda zindabad is nowhere eligible to comment on the channels which are showing real and most authentic facts.. their real colors haha it’s nationalism and supporting the fair side with the help of most authentic evidence and statistics.. the wire the print the quint NDTV so on and so forth are famous for spreading rumors and talking absolute nonsense infact total shit.. so better check yourself only few jokers with no logic believe you and support u with same agenda but this country has maximum people with rational thinking and love what modi ji is doing.. on 5th April u will get a befitting reply from maximum Indians.. then again start crying… We will enjoy laughing at you and your miserable mindset..
The author and The Print have exposed without any doubt their true color. This is the hight of one sided journalism to appease a particular community.
There is not even a single word condoning the grave crime committed by the phanatic.On the other hand are blaming all the TV channels for exposing and bringing to the public domain. Better don’t try to fool the nation with false propaganda…….
Tablighi Jamaat want to destroy India like all Muslim invaders of Indian history.
Correct….print is being run on chorgress funds.
What is your agenda ?
Who is paying you to write this shit?
Yes, these are definitely be called as murderers because of them thousands of people are going to die and atop that this has been done deliberately.
And there are people out there who are supporting them.
Seriously they are the people in the form of demons.
What a biased News Article,
how do they even dare, to project their agenda in this Pandemic Situation…
Please atleast do justice for your Nation,
Countrymen & For your Motherland…
You guys don’t deserve a Publication media license,
Do shut your shop & get lost…
A really good attempt by the author to whitewash the crime commited by this communal Jamaat. I am highly impressed.
It’s funny to see Führer’s troll army flooding the comments section here. It’s 3 April, maybe they received an increased baksheesh after the YES bank fiasco and the PM-CARES gimmick. They are toiling very hard to influence people’s opinions and bringing in a civil war, but all in vain. Some will be out with rods and knives to teach thePrint a lesson. Where is this country headed?
Dost,ye jo apna sar tumne dhasa rakha h na ret m shuturmurg ki tarah,usko bahar nikalo aur dekho..k kese log is vaakiye p kese bayanaat de rhe h…I mean people like owaisi n u say that media is communalising this issue n they were stuck there because of lockdown,but who the fuck is forcing them to spit on others,roam around naked in hospital,and make obscene comments on nurses.Why police has to hunt them down,why r they nt coming out on their own?And why r they attacking police n doctors when they go to their ghettos?Now come on dude,all we r saying is that atleast 50% people of this community are anti-national and anti-hindu and a very big reason for that is the other 50% who don’t support them,they don’t openly come out and criticise them.So the government needs to take strict action and such that it teaches a lesson to whole community.
Even an idiot would know what just happened post the Nizamuddin issue. Whom are we trying to fool. Sudden increase in cases, people denying and hiding their travel information to Nizamuddin, people chasing away doctors who have gone to help them and many such incidents. What does all this prove? Nobody wanted to blame any community. No one wanted to make this an community issue. The concentration was only trying to contain the spread of the virus in India with whatever immediate measures the govt could take. Why did this community issue came up in the first place. Because today we have 2300 + cases only because of one irresponsible act by a certain community. It’s still not the time to get into this communal game. Let’s focus on clearing the crap what some irresponsible people have brought to the general public and increased the burden on every system that is trying fight and contain the spread of this virus. Dear author of this article. Very poor article. Wrong timing.
shailaja bajpai mam!!! You are an inspiration for us. It takes a lot of courage to reveal the truth. For Jihad is the direct path to Allah. You are inspiration for educated fools like us.
The print prints only the content of it’s virus affected brain. It is very difficult for them to resist themselves to criticize the government in any issue… nobody is buying their lies…
Read this story first and how ODISHA reacted and acted to stop Corona Virus unlike Tablighi Jamaat who opwnly defied government rules.
I recently completed 14 days of quarantine at my residence in Cuttack, Odisha, after I returned from my Fulbright post-doctoral research fellowshsip at Just read this story from ODISHA and how Tablighi Jamaat should have done to avoid brandishing.
Harvard Law School. Enforcing home-quarantine of foreign returnees has been a challenge for state governments across the country. There have been many examples of people violating their quarantine, putting others at risk.
While Odisha has not been without incidents of administrative lapses and wilful negligence, the state government has done a far better job of monitoring the quarantine situation than most of its counterparts. Even though the bureaucratic inefficiencies are still glaringly visible, the state machinery has done a rather commendable job so far.
Dammit!
I knew we should have sent more of our Allah’s brothers to spread infe- I mean, preach Allah’s word in Odisha.
Shailaja, either you are a communist or leftist because you cannot fathom how much this outfit Taglighi Jamaat has done?You must also be very young without any experience hence your story.Just shut up your shop and disappear.
Why print always blaming government anything happen in entire country blaming on government.. this is not good.. citizens of this country also having a responsibility towards nation to protect our Nation, peoples this is a basic responsibility.. please not to blame government every time .. we are living the biggest populated country in world..I don’t think government trace down each and every person in this country… this is not possible.. people should be support government
Great…stupids who are working in Print always does the anti government and anti india activities…I feel print is more dangerous than Covid -19 for India.
These are the people who spearheaded Shaheen bagh, Anti CAA activities in the country by supporting them through their articles. They are the one who will be very happy if lot of people die due to Covid-19 bcoz they will get opportunity to criticize govt more…but Modiji won’t give you that opportunity.
Project management studies MD of xyz. apply for new invention project, forcast that I have new plan for jobs creations inone or two years production will resume@100 employee, Now story start 2.25 manpower services to reduce software development Engineer 6%will reduce by automation, again HR asked for cost cutting.Where as project management studies commitment 100job this is happening in the home of our country, and World, whomever it blame no body bothered, more ever fighting for cast religion.
Sir I can’t understand what you are telling, your message is no relevant to the discussion of delhi Tablighi jamart,you proved your bias to one community.
Print can blame only the government. Not a word against Tablighi Jamaat.
More than 550 new corona virus case are due to Tablighi Jammatt, many are not traceable.
Print does not spent any word against the mob violence against the doctor
Why will they blame jamaat? Print probably gets funds from jamaat.
I don’t see a single instance where thePrint is blaming the government or the Fuhrer. They are just summarizing the daily news presented in all the major news channels. Are you saying that those news channels are playing the Fuhrer’s fiddle and are not doing their jobs properly???
So Mr whoever you are and where your shoe licking loyalty lies with but the more than a thousand case spike due to the jamaaat doesn’t bother your or you are just senselessly blind
To the author of this article-
If this was your personal view then you should have limited it to your personal view instead of writing down here.
Even I have personal view but I don’t work in media to write and make people believe what are my personal views
Not a single Muslim in above comments Condemned the act of Tabligi Jamats act, & the Maullanas baselessSpeeches,
Proves that yet they are leaving in preparation
Era.
It does not matter the group was not told to disperse until the 22 or 23 so they were doing nothing illegal. What about all the temples that were open. The government of India was still in session so stop making these crazy accusations that it was done on purpose. Believe me none of those people wanted to get sick!
Sir why muslims talk about Tablighi they are the one wants to destroy our culture and country.
The main question is still not raised by any media chanel. Why didn’t the government stop international flights a month before the lockdown. N will take only indians who r willing to come home n will be compulsory isolated for 14 days by the government itself. U took action of cancelling int flights with domestic after isolating the whole nation for 21 days n it will be followed for anther a month or 2. U were afraid of revenue loss genarated by the airports. But what was this u locked down the whole nation n the loss the people here r suffering the poor, the miggrant labourers n the indian economy. Didn’t they new that if the virus has spread to the EN n States then it might reach to our soil, we had to stop it. Where was r intelligence? Sleeping.
Our neighbouring country bangladesh went in lockdown n gave the people a buffer of 48 hours to tell them to go where ever they want n stock food when they were in stage 1. This way the migrant labourer problem wouldn’t have arise in our country.
I agree, we have failed as a Administration unit
If you give a buffer of 2 days then people would use that time drastically to do whatever things they won’t be able to do after lockdown. This way the whole thing would be rendered pointless.
Sir, why did you not raise the question of banning international airlines 3 months earlier? I mean, you have earlier experience of such pandemics and you exactly knew what to do and when to do. This is all nonsensical comments. Just to blame the government, or, the administration, or, law enforcement agencies, intelligence, judiciary by such logics of the most illogical lot of people and their supporters…
Bangladesh model cannot work here. The area and population of Bangladesh and India is incomparable.
WHO said that no country should cancel their flights with CHINA and OTHER Affected countries. The government is prepared. And we all can see that. That is the only reason the cases in India are less (talking the scenario before this corona jihad). The density of people catching the virus is 3 among the 1M population. But as it is said, people don’t see the wrong in the gathering. The logic you gave of giving people 48 hours to shop is so stupid. 2 DAYS and India can turn into death bed. Kuch bhi bolna hai.
Corona virus has given the world a chance to reflect on oneself.. The pause in the routine of our activities is the best chance to recheck our thoughts and actions.. Let us not allow the anchors of TV channels ruin our future and the future of our children…Remember the whole world is watching us..
Corona was secular till it travel to urope ,usa ,Iran etc as soon as it entered India it became Islamic The presstitute of godi media gave it a green colour to hide the proverty of ideas of the saffron colour in coping with the short comings ,medical staff not having the proper instruments no infra structure .people treating corona getting infected.and dieting .More deaths by panic and hunger than the corona itself It is easy to discuss the nonissues than the real issues the licker media is doing same it has become dangerous virus than corona welcome corona for exposing the licker presstitute.
Do not Compair our Health preparedness with an European country. Compair the mental preparedness of our Doctors,medical staff, and government. Even Americans failed to take tough decision like our government and now they are paying huge price. Go there and see live don’t see recorded msg.
You are talking like a person who can scream without sense. Pseudo secularists like you are a menace to the soceity.
Things have happened now either by knowingly or unknowingly. Now its time for cross checking their health , allow for medical tests and all of these participants must maintain social distancing
Now is this what is left to report for you people ?
Why you are worried about what others are reporting
You follow your own instincts and do some good journalism, find real problems and also give some good suggestions, ( seems journalism is just all about highlighting issues), but do remember this is a diffrent time all together
In human history nothing like this has ever been faced, so any government will have more challenges on every day , and there will be real new crisis, journalist like you should take lead and also show the right way or some solutions ( which unfortunately you people dont do, as you say our work is to highlight issues govt has to work, )
Kindly focus on real journalism rather then commenting on what other channels are doing , intact you are giving them more prominence by giving space in your write up ( Hope your intellect may awaken your own instincts )
Last week, Mr Shivam Vij (Consulting Editor-Views are personal) wrote that “21-day lockdown announced by Mr Modi will destroy India’s economy”. Two days ago, the same gentleman displaying his infinite wisdom, wrote that “Lockdown was necessary”. What do you make of it?
My India.
The Print … Why are you so sympathetic to wards tabliki zamat ???
You the print trying your best to portray yourself as neutral and the channels you are supporting in this article makes it clear that you are not. The truth is in between these two sets of channels. Once a foreigner enter our soil you are asking the government to track where all they visit? Can you let me know which country on earth could do it? You need to call a spade a spade. By asking counter questions is only like Congress vs bjp fight.