Tablighi Jamaat and Coronavirus pandemic. Tablighi Jamaat attracted significant public and media attention recently as a principle hotspot for spread of coronaviru pandemic in India. The same organisation is also responsible for spread of the disease in a number of countries. Between February and March 2020, the movement organised and tried to organize a number of events in South and South East Asia.

An international mass religious gathering at a mosque in Sri Petaling, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. The Tablighi Jamaat gathering has been linked to more than 620 COVID-19 cases, making it the largest-known centre of transmission of the virus in Southeast Asia. The Sri Petaling event resulted in the biggest increase in Covid-19 cases in Malaysia, with almost two thirds of the 673 confirmed cases in Malaysia linked to this event by 17 March 2020. Most of the Covid-19 cases in Brunei originated here, and other countries including Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines have traced their cases back to this event. Despite the outbreak, Tablighi Jammat organised a second international mass gathering on 18 March in Gowa Regency near Makassar in South Sulawesi, Indonesia.

Though the organisers initially rebuffed official directives to cancel the gathering, they subsequently complied and cancelled the gathering. Yet another gathering was organised in Pakistan near Lahore at Raiwind, for 150,000 people. The event was "called off" in response to the officials' requests, but the participants had already gathered and communed together. When they returned the virus travelled with them, including two cases in the Gaza strip. During testing around 40 members of the jamat were found to be COVID infected. Another 50 people including 4 NIgerian women, suspected to be the carriers of the virus were quarantined 50 km from Lahore.

In Hyderabad, Sindh 38 members of the jamaat were found to be positive for coronavirus. Raiwind, the place where the event was held has been locked down by Pakistani authorities while the police arrested members of Tablighi jamaat from their offices in Sindh and Punjab for violating the law. Later during quarantine, one of the members of the jamaat stabbed a policemen while trying to escape from the isolation facility. He was later arrested in Khyber Pakthunwa while the policeman was hospitalized in Layyah town. During this crisis, the Pakistan government has found itself in helpless situation. While initially the Prime minister Imran Khan downplayed the crisis, the country saw rapid rise in cases with limited testing facilities.

The problem has further aggravated with doctors not reporting to work, clerics refusing to shut down mosques, parents unwilling to quarantine children in congested homes as they play on the streets. In our country, the Nizamuddin faction of the Tablighi Jamaat held a religious congregational program in Nizamuddin West, Delhi 2020. There was Ijtema (congregation) in every week of March till March 21. There were also other violation of rules by foreign speakers including misuse of tourist visa for missionary activities and not taking 14-day home quarantine for travellers from abroad. At least 24 of the attendees had tested positive for the virus among the 300 who showed symptom by 31 March 2020.

It is believed that the sources of infection were preachers from Indonesia. Many had returned to their states and also provided refuge to foreign speakers without the knowledge of local governments and eventually affected many people in different states especially in Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Telengana, Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir, Kerala, Manipur and Assam. The entire Nizamuddin West area has been cordoned off by the Police as of 30 March, and medical camps have been set up.

After evacuation from the markaz, of the scores of jamaat attendees, 167 of them were quarantined in a railway facility in south east Delhi amid concerns over their safety and transmission of the virus. There were further complications after the staff at the quarantine facility reported the Tablighi jamaat followers misbehaved with the staff and spating, which is likely to further spread the disease. FIR was lodged against members of the jamaat quarantined in Ghaziabad after their misbehaviour was reported by the Chief medical officer. The officer reported that the inmates quarantined were roaming naked, playing vulgar songs and making lewd gestures and remarks at the female staff of the hospital.

After this the UP government decided that they would not be treated by any female staff and also booked the jammat members under the national security act. Tablighi Jamaat gathering emerged as one of India's major coronavirus hotspots in India, after 389 people linked to Tablighi Jamaat tested positive by 2 April 2020. A similar event was prohibited in Mumbai by the Maharashtra Police. On 31 March 2020, an FIR was filed against Muhammad Saad Kandhlawi and others by Delhi Police Crime Branch under Section 3 of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 and Sections 269 (Negligent act likely to spread infection of disease), 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease), 271 (disobedience to quarantine rule) and 120b (punishment of criminal conspiracy) of the IPC. #ThoughtProvoking