The Delhi Police Crime Branch filed 20 charge sheets against Tablighi Jamaat members including foreign nationals who attended the Nizamuddin Markaz event. As per Republic, as many as 2,000 members who had attended the markaz event including 83 foreign nationals are expected to be named in them. Delhi’s Saket Court has listed the matter for further hearing on June 12.
Reports suggest that the charge sheet will be filed in batches. The first lot was filed on Tuesday which will include charges against 83 foreign nationals who purposedly came from Malaysia, Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia to be a part of the Jamaat event.
Earlier on May 6, in a major relief to over 4000 Jamaat members, a Delhi government order had released the quarantined persons. The Jamaat members who were named in investigation were sent to police custody and remaining were sent back to their homes. The institutional quarantine period was increased from 14 to 28 days due to highly suspected and contact cases. The increased quarantine measures were imposed after it was found that members in hot-spots were still getting contact infection even after a 20-day quarantine period.
Passports and documents of Tablighi Jamaat members seized
The Delhi Police Crime Branch seized passports and important documents of around 700 Jamaat members. They were also interrogated over their involvement in the case. The Crime Branch tried to find out that on what basis they have got the visa and who helped them in getting such a visa.
Tablighi Jamaat event that turned out being a super-spreader.
The Tablighi jamaat event in Delhi was held in the month of march that wreaked havoc in the country. The event produced more than 30 percent of the total coronavirus cases in the country. The Markaz event was not only attended by Indian Muslims but also foreign nationals. The alarm bells should have started ringing when seven Indonesian nationals associated with the organization tested positive for the Wuhan Coronavirus in Telangana after traveling from Delhi to Karimnagar for an Ijtema. However, it was only later that the full scope of the Tablighi Jamaat’s contribution to the spreading of the virus became prominent when nearly 300 Jamaatis in the Delhi’s Banglewali Masjid had to be taken to hospital for suspected coronavirus symptoms, many testing positive eventually.
Delhi police booked Tablighi Chief
After the religious mass gathering of the Nizamuddin Markaz event came into light, the Delhi Police Crime Branch registered an FIR against the Chief of Tablighi Jamaat Maulana Saad Khandalvi under Epidemics Act 1897 for allowing a religious congregation despite the repeated warnings from the center and the state government. Later the Crime Branch booked Maulana Saad under section 304, Culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
The Enforcement Directorate also booked Maulana Saad and nine others under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) based on predicate offense that was registered by Delhi police. The bank accounts related to the orthodox sect and relatives of Maulana saad are under scanned of ED.
Maulana Saad still absconding
The Tablighi Jamaat chief Maulana Saad is still absconding. The Delhi Police crime branch had sent two notices to Saad under Section 91 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The police have asked Maulana Saad to provide the documents mentioned in the notice. The first notice was found “unsatisfactory”.
The Delhi police slammed second notice after Saad remained untraceable with 36 questions at his farmhouse near Shamli nagar near Delhi.
