THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: As many as 123 Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) members from the state had visited their national headquarters at Nizamuddin in New Delhi during the first week of March and are all under home quarantine, said highly-placed police sources.
Of them, 53 were from the Northern districts, while 69 were from the Southern districts. The most number of people hailed from Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam and Pathanamthitta districts. About 36 people from these districts had gone to Nizamuddin, which is now considered the hot spot of COVID, to attend the functions there, including the mushawara (meeting).
The sources confirmed that so far none of the members in home quarantine have exhibited any COVID symptoms and the Health Department is monitoring the situation keenly. The travel itinerary of the 123 people varied as some had visited the headquarters before the meeting, while some had taken part in it.
TJ sources, meanwhile, clarified that 54 people from Kerala had attended the meeting. However, none of these had attended the programme held on March 18, which was meant for prominent TJ figures from Tamil Nadu. "Many of them have spent 21 days in quarantine," said a source.
Various agencies have pegged the number of Keralites, who had attended the March 18 event at 20, including one woman from Pathanapuram. Both TJ and government sources said all those who had attended the event are still in Delhi.
"They were part of various teams that were active in outreach programmes held in and around Delhi. They later went back to the headquarters and stayed there during the March 18 programme. All of them are still there," sources said.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that about 25 separate jamaats (travelling teams) had left for various places in North India of which 14 groups are yet to return. Most of the groups had left in January and February last. The 14 groups collectively have a strength of 140 and are stranded in various Indian cities, where they are under quarantine.
Of this, three groups are in Haryana, two in Srinagar, three in Uttar Pradesh, one in Andaman in, one in Punjab, one in Maharashtra, one in Uttarakhand, one in Bengaluru and one is in Nizamudeen (20-member team). The group that's stranded in Bengaluru was returning from North India when the lockdown was announced and they had to suspend their forward journey.
It's yet to be known whether any of the 14 groups had visited the headquarters for attending the meeting.