On Sunday, a member of the Tablighi Jamaat stabbed a police officer SHO Ashraf Malik Maakhi, with a knife after he reportedly tried to escape a quarantine facility. The officer was then shifted to the DHQ Hospital in Layyah and is said to be in a stable condition. The assailant was apprehended by the cops from Swabi district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of Pakistan.
SHO Ashraf Malik in Layyah stabbed & injured by a Tablighi Jamaat member who was trying to escape quarantine. 27 Tablighi Jamaat members out of 35 screened at their markaz in Raiwind have tested positive for coronavirus. Islam or not, Tablighis are certainly spreading the virus pic.twitter.com/dcFmynBaJd
— Bilal Farooqi (@bilalfqi) March 30, 2020
As per reports, 27 out of 35 members of the Tablighi Jamaat tested positive for the Wuhan Coronavirus in Raiwind in Lahore in the Punjab region of Pakistan. The Islamic outfit had organised a religious congregation for 1200 people. The event was later called off thus making it difficult for the members to reach home, amidst the government-sanctioned lockdown. The Markaz was sealed and turned into a quarantine facility, housing 25 people.
Earlier in March, the Tablighi Jamaat organised a religious congregation of 1.5 lakh people on the outskirts of Lahore. The mass gathering resulted in transmission of the COVID-19 pandemic. The participants, in complete breach of social distancing, ate and slept in close quarters.
Two Palestinian citizens who attended the meeting tested positive for Coronavirus, thus becoming the first case of the outbreak in the Gaza Strip which is one of the most densely populated areas with poverty levels as high as 50%. The patients were shifted to an isolation ward at a hospital in the city of Rafah. Around 1,270 people were quarantined after they entered Gaza from Israel and Egypt. This had resulted in a state of panic in the region with limited testing capabilities.
Closer home in India, around 200 people from the Nizamuddin Dargah and surrounding areas were taken to various hospitals in Delhi on Monday after they showed suspected coronavirus symptoms. As per reports, the area around the Nizamuddin Dargah and the Mosque near it has been cordoned off by Delhi police. As of now, at least 24 people have been tested positive from those evacuated from Nizamuddin. The number is expected to go significantly higher.
