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Will interrogate Tablighi Jamaat leader over audio clip: Delhi Police
The investigators said they will question Maulana Saad over the recording they have found in which he is purportedly heard urging his followers against following the prohibitory orders while calling them the government’s conspiracy.
Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) head Maulana Saad was on the run a day a case was filed against him for allegedly defying restrictions on gatherings to contain the coronavirus (Covid-19) spread, two investigators said on Wednesday, and added they want to interrogate him over an audio recording in which he is purportedly heard asking his followers to flout social distancing guidelines.
Saad and five other top functionaries of the group were booked on Tuesday after it was discovered that the TJ’s headquarters in Delhi’s Nizamuddin area has emerged as the single-biggest source of Covid-19 infections in the country. The six-storey headquarters has been linked to at least eight deaths and 117 confirmed Covid-19 cases. The discovery prompted around a dozen states to sound an alert and search for the people, who had been to the headquarters. The Centre separately began the process to blacklisting 275 foreigners, found at the headquarters, who allegedly flouted visa rules by claiming to be tourists.
The investigators cited above said they will question Saad over the recording they have found in which he is purportedly heard urging his followers against following the prohibitory orders while calling them the government’s conspiracy.
The Delhi Police have mentioned the recording in the first information report (FIR) filed in the case. HT has seen a copy of the FIR.
“The audio tape is an important evidence. Before the [three-week countrywide] lockdown [was imposed from March 25 to check the Covid-19 spread], they should have sent back the visitors. Instead of making arrangements, the head [Saad] wilfully misled the gathering and asked them to stay put. The case against him and others has been registered under sections of criminal conspiracy and the Epidemic Diseases Act,” one of the investigating officers said on condition of anonymity.
Over 400 people at the headquarters have shown Covid-19 symptoms. A joint team of police, health workers, and the World Health Organization have evacuated at least 2,361 people from congested Nizamuddin until Wednesday. They have been sent to quarantine centres and hospitals.
Investigators said Saad allegedly ignored the government’s March 13 and March 16 orders banning gatherings of over 200 persons and any form of religious congregations.
Officers of the Delhi Police, who are authorised to speak to the media, refused to comment on the investigations despite repeated text messages and phone calls.
The TJ on Tuesday issued a statement, saying the visitors were stuck at the headquarters because of the lockdown. Its spokesman, Mohammed Shoaib, said they had sent a request for curfew passes to the Delhi government to help the visitors leave their headquarters but they received no reply.
Police and government officials have been scouring 16 mosques across Delhi, where some visitors at the TJ headquarters had stayed after leaving Nizamuddin. On Tuesday, the Delhi’s Police’s intelligence gathering wing wrote to the health department asking it to take “necessary action” as the “persons/foreigners associated with Tablighi Jamaat” were staying at those placed and posed “a grave danger to public health.”
Syed Shaban Bukhari, the vice-Shahi Imam (prayer leader) of Delhi’s Jama Masjid, said they have sent a message to management committees of mosques in Delhi, urging them not to panic and make it mandatory for guests to get their medical check-ups done.
“We have sent the message via a WhatsApp group asking committees to ensure they get the medical check-ups of guests conducted. It is crucial for the overall safety and for containing the Covid-19 transmission” said Bukhari.
Mufti Mukarram Ahmed, the Shahi Imam of Delhi’s Fatehpuri Masjid, said mosques have been shut since they were ordered to do so. “We had already issued advisories asking people not to gather at mosques. The government should set up a help desk for the people who are stuck since the lockdown was imposed... [They] were not given any time to go back to their respective places.”
