Delhi Government Employees Welfare Association has written to the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijla, seeking eviction of 120 members of Tablighi Jamaat who had been quarantined in a government school in the neighbourhood. Gulabi Bagh houses 2500 Government officers along with their 15,000 family members.
They have requested the Government to shift the Wuhan Coronavirus infected patients to a neighbourhood with less population. “They have been quarantined here ignoring the fact that most of the staff residing here, is on emergency duty to contain Novel Coronavirus”, the letter read.
The Tablighi Jamaat event at the Nizamuddin Markaz in Delhi held earlier in March has wreaked havoc in the country. Out of India’s 2500 odd cases, 647 have been linked to the congregation organised by Tablighi Jamaat, a staggering 28 percent of the total cases.
In Delhi too, the number of cases is increasing rapidly and most of these cases are related to Nizamuddin Markaz. Yesterday, Delhi reported 93 new cases and all the cases were related to the Tablighi Jamaat. However, the Delhi Minorities Commission has written a letter to the Delhi government urging it to drop the separate column of ‘Markaz Majid’ in its daily bulletins on coronavirus cases in Delhi.
Amidst the Coronavirus outbreak, the Delhi health department has been publishing a daily health bulletin giving out comprehensive details of coronavirus case status in the state. The daily health bulletin updates the: total number of coronavirus cases, new cases on that specific day, discharged and migrated out coronavirus patients, the total number of death as on that day in Delhi. It also has other three columns that have been mentioned under ‘source of cases’. The Tablighi Jamaat finds mention under this sub-heading, as ‘Markaz Related’.
The DMC Chairman Dr. Zafarul-Islam Khan alleged, “Your bulletins of Coronavirus victims are showing a separate column ‘Markaz Masjid’. Such thoughtless classification is feeding into the Islamophobia agenda of the lap media and Hindutva forces and has been easily turned into a handle to attack Muslims across the country.”
