CHANDIGARH: More than 1,300 Tablighi Jamaat workers have been traced in Haryana, of which 106 are foreigners from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Philippines, Nepal and Thailand. The state police has registered cases against all the foreigners.
Haryana Director General of Police Manoj Yadava said, "We have been able to track 1305 workers of the Tablighi Jamaat from 15 different districts of Haryana. Most of them were immediately placed under quarantine in various centres
established by the district administrations. Out of these, about 500 Tablighi Jamaat
workers admitted to having visited “Banglewali Masjid” located in Nizamuddin area of Delhi. After testing eight persons, three each from Palwal and Nuh and two from Ambala, have tested positive for COVID-19 so far."
He added, "106 Tablighi Jamaat workers are foreign nationals who have been
tracked down from five different districts of Haryana (Faridabad, Ambala,
Panipat, Palwal and Nuh). These foreigners belong mostly to Indonesia, Philippines, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Thailand. All of them have been placed under quarantine and their passports have been taken into possession by Police. Five separate FIRs have been registered under the relevant provisions of IPC and Foreigner’s Act in these five districts.’’
Yadava said, "933 Tablighi Jamaat workers belonging to different states including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Assam and Bihar who were in Haryana have also been tracked down and all of them have been placed in quarantine centres or in the mosques where they were found. Their samples have been collected and sent to laboratories for examination."
He said, "We also tracked down 266 Tablighi Jamaat workers belonging to Haryana who had visited different states and had returned during the last ten days to their villages. Since they are also potential carriers of coronavirus, they have also been placed under quarantine. They mostly belong to Gurugram, Panchkula, Yamunanagar, Panipat, Nuh, Sonipat, Jind and Palwal districts."
"One interesting aspect of this data is that about half of the Tablighi Jamaat workers tracked throughout Haryana were found in Nuh. In fact, 636 Tabligh Jamaat workers including 57 foreigners and 528 from other states have been tracked down in Nuh alone," Yadava added.
"Till date a total of 4,539 violations of lockdown have been reported in the
state, 948 cases have been registered and 1,374 people have been arrested. All
182 entry points in the state have been sealed and the police personnel who are
deployed at these points or who are guarding quarantine and isolation facilities have been provided with masks and hand sanitisers and also undergo medical check-up every week,’’ he said, adding that farmers would be allowed in the fields but social distancing has to be maintained.
Additional Chief Secretary Rajiv Arora said, "Presently two hospitals, PGIMS Rohtak and BPS Government Medical College for Women, are doing testing for Covid. Now private laboratories in Gurugram also testing at Panchkula, Karnal, Rohtak, Hisar and Nuh will start soon as per the protocol." He claimed that Haryana is yet to enter the community transmission stage.
Arora said that the state has 19,000 Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), 90,000
N-95 masks, 10 lakh triple ply masks and 1282 ventilators. "We have ordered
2.5 lakh PPE kits, 1.45 lakh N-95 masks and 210 ventilators."
Meanwhile, with eight new cases, the number of COVID-19 patients has gone up to 43 in Haryana. As per the medical bulletin, there are 10 cases in Gurugram of which five are new. Two of them are from Maharashtra who had visited the Tablighi Jamaat gathering in Delhi and one is from Uttar Pradesh.
Three men from Kerala who attended the congregation and were quarantined in Nuh have also tested positive.
There are six positive cases in Faridabad, four each in Panipat and Palwal,
three each in Sirsa and Ambala, two cases in Panchkula and one each in Hisar,
Sonepat and Rohtak.
Thirteen coronavirus patients have been treated and discharged so far, taking the number of active patients in the state to 30.