Amit Shah talks to CMs Yogi Adityanath, Nitish Kumar on 'Markaz-like' events in Bihar & UP

After the surge of positive cases of Coronavirus (COVID-19) amid the attendees of Delhi's Nizamuddin Markaz event and the Majnu ka Tilla gurdwara scare, sources report on Wednesday, that Home Minister Amit Shah has spoken to Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on similar religious congregations reportedly held in their respective states. Sources further state that the Home secretary Ajay Bhalla will further take up the issue with respective state home secretaries and DGPs. Currently, 1800 Markaz attendees have been sent to 9 hospitals and quarantine centers, informed the Health Ministry. India saw the biggest spike on Tuesday with 382 cases testing positive.

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Markaz occupants evacuated, building sanitised

Earlier in the day, Delhi Deputy CM Manish Sisodia has informed that in a 36-hour operation all 2361 occupants in the mosque have been evacuated of which 617 have been hospitalised and others have been quarantined, with the entire building being sanitised. The Delhi Crime Branch which has booked the Markaz chief Maulana Saad for violating lockdown is currently searching for him by raiding possible hideouts. Currently, 23 cases from Jammu and Kashmir, 20 from Telangana, 17 from Andhra Pradesh, 9 cases from Andaman, 2 cases from Puducherry, 1 from Assam etc have tested positive and have been confirmed as attendees of the event.

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What is the Nizamuddin COVID-19 scare?

On Monday, sources reported that a religious programme was organised at Tablighi Jamaat's headquarters Markaz Nizamuddin mosque between 13-15 March which had over 3400 attendees from Malaysia, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Kyrgyzstan and from several states in India. After attending the meeting, prior to the nationwide lockdown, 1500 of these attendees returned to several parts of the country, possibly spreading the COVID-19 virus. On Sunday, around 50-70 people, who were hiding in a mosque, were taken to LNJP hospital as they were all COVID-19 suspects – 24 have tested positive. The mosque has claimed that while they were letting small groups of attendees leave from the venue prior to the Janta Curfew, several were stuck in the area – which has now been entirely quarantined – owing to the nationwide lockdown.

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Attendees contact tracing on

Ministry of Home Affairs informed that 1746 individuals were staying in Delhi's Nizamuddin Markaz as of March 21 - 216 foreigners, 1530 Indians. While 1339 Tabligh Jamaat workers are being screened and quarantined, the government has banned all their tourist visas for violating conditions and is seeking deportation of attendees testing negative. Apart from these individuals, MHA stated that 2137 persons have been identified in different states. Most stated have quarantined the attendees tracked by them and are contact tracing the others. The highest number of attendees were from Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, and Uttar Pradesh. Other states like Gujarat, Goa, Kerala, Punjab, etc too are tracing and quarantining attendees. Currently, India's COVID-19 cases stand at 1637 with 38 deaths. 

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