Nizamuddin connection: 25 attendees traced in Thane district

Authorities have so far traced 25 people, most of them foreigners, who had attended the last month's Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi to Mumbra in Maharashtra's Thane district, an official said on Wednesday. According to the official, at least 21 persons out of the 25 are foreign nationals.

While eight of them are from Malaysia, 13 others are Bangladeshis and the rest from Assam--who were found staying in a mosque and at other location in Mumbra, 10 kms from Thane. Nizamuddin area has emerged as one of the hotspots for coronavirus outbreak since the religious gathering was held there, prompting many states to launch a massive search for the attendees.

"On the directions from the Centre, a team of seven to eight medical officials has been deployed along with the police to carry out inspection and for identifying those who had attended the event. So far they have identified at least 25 persons from two madarsas(seminaries) in Mumbra and the search is still on," said Dr RT Kendre, Officer on Special Duty (OSD) incharge for coronavirus cases for Thane. He said none of the identified persons had any health issues.

He said further course of action will be decided after identifying the attendees. After the matter came to light, the Centre and the Delhi government swung into action to trace people who attended the congregation.

Some of the attendees from various states who had attended the event later tested positive. Some deaths were attributed to the infection transmitted by these people. Kendre said medical officials are still trying to verify whether any of the 25 persons had contracted the infection.

"We found that the 13 Bangladeshi nationals came to India via Kolkata, and travelled to Delhi before coming to Thane. Their travel history is investigated," said DCP (zone I) S S Burse. He said all of them were quarantined and results of their samples are awaited.

The DCP said that eight Malaysian nationals were found staying in another areain Mumbra and they have also been home quarantined. Sources said that the 25 persons travelled to Mumbra after attending the Jamaat event in Delhi in mid-March.

According to sources, police received information that some nationals from Kyrgyzstan and the Philippines had also visited Mumbra. DCP, Bhiwandi, Rajkumar Shinde said police carried out searches at mosques in the powerloom town in Thane district, but did not come across anybody who had attended the Delhi.

PTI CORR NSK NSK.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)