New Delhi: The Tablighi Jamaat was in prominence on prime time debates Monday night after the government said that the Jamaat’s Nizamuddin event in Delhi significantly contributed to the surge in coronavirus cases in the country.
Republic’s anchor Arnab Goswami asked where the Tablighis were hiding while Aaj Tak’s Anjana Om Kashyap discussed the dangers of community spread.
ABP News’ anchors Sumit Awasthi, Shobhna Yadav and Rubika Liyaquat verbally jousted with Muslim cleric Maulana Ali Qadri. They accused him of threatening journalists, while he accused them of spreading hatred between communities.
Yadav reprimanded him, “Ulta chor kotwal ko daante” (pot calling the kettle black).
Liyaquat also couldn’t miss the action, “Why should I listen to someone who lets his own people get infected?” Qadri left the interaction soon after because it got too much for him.
Kashyap, on Aaj Tak, was still reeling from Sunday’s 9 pm diya jalaana, “PM Modi ne thana hai coronavirus ko harana hai,” (PM Modi is determined to defeat coronavirus).
Kashyap continued, “The government is working very hard on this. But it would be a different story if people didn’t break the lockdown or hide their travel history.” This was a not-so-veiled reference to the Tablighi Jamaat because the visuals that followed were of the Nizamuddin Markaz.
Zee News’ anchor Sudhir Chaudhary was rather pumped about the fact that the world now needs medicines not weapons.
Chaudhary explained, “Ek time par US India ko bazaar samajhata tha hathiyaar bechne ke liye, lekin ab davaiyan maang raha hai” (There was a time when the US thought of India as a market to sell weapons, but now they are asking for medicines). He was referring to US President Donald Trump asking PM Modi to lift the ban on the export of hydroxychloroquine, a drug that could be effective against Covid-19.
India TV’s Rajat Sharma was feeling preachy too. He explained that many people who have succumbed to the virus abroad haven’t been buried properly due to the lack of facilities available.
Sharma told his viewers about why he thought this was an important fact, “These pictures (of the deaths) give you pain and are scary. But we can’t hide the reality from you”.
“Jin logon ki akal par pathar pad gaya hai, unko batana zaroori hai” (This is important for people who are not in their senses) he continued. Sharma was referring to people who were breaking the lockdown.
India Today’s anchor Rahul Kanwal was in conversation with Dr Raman Gangakhedkar, ICMR’s head of epidemiology. Kanwal asked him, “There are reports coming from hospitals where doctors are complaining of the shortage of PPEs. Even though we know that the government has asked for more PPE, when will they start coming?”
Dr Gangakhedkar passed the buck on this one, “Actually this question should be asked to the Ministry of Health, it doesn’t fall in the domain of ICMR. But I can assure that all efforts are being made to procure PPEs.”
NDTV 24×7 anchor Nidhi Razdan asked, “Are we spending too little, does Indian government need to give us another stimulus package or even a bigger one?”
Piyush Gupta, CEO, DBS Bank said, “I have to be pragmatic, most countries will have to focus on creating packages consistent with their capacity.”
“I believe that India will have to think about packages which are focused on job retention,” he added.
Times Now’s Rahul Shivshankar marshalled every possible statistic to blame the Tablighi Jamaat’s congregation for India’s coronavirus cases.
Shivshankar alleged, “Over 33.8 per cent of cases are linked to Tablighi Jamaat, which is critical to understand that India would have been far better placed had this congregation not taken place.”
He still continued to ask the question, “Why aren’t we seeing a flattening of the curve?”
Arnab Goswami, on Republic, also harped on the same theme but with a different statistic, “One out of 3 cases in India are directly because of Tablighi Jamaat.”
“We must begin to trace Tablighis in hiding. The denial must end now. This threat is real,” he asserted.