COVID-19: The case of missing worshippers of Tablighi Jamaat

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Lahore, 7th April: Amid the deadly pandemic spreading across the country, last month an Islamic congregation was held in Lahore, despite the government’s order to avoid social gatherings.

According to reports, the gathering was held by the prominent Islamic missionary group by the name of Tablighi Jamaat from the 10th of March till the 12th in Lahore. More than 100,000 people attended the gathering, undeterred by the government’s request for it to be cancelled as the virus hit the country during early March.

As per sources, around 20,000 of these worshippers have been quarantined so far but the authorities are still searching for tens of thousands more who attended the gathering. The officials want to test all of them or keep them in quarantine who congregated at the Tablighi Jamaat event.

The people attending the congregation have spread throughout the country and some outside becoming carriers of the virus, as at least 154 worshippers had tested positive for COVID-19 with 2 fatalities reported.

It has been reported that many foreign nationals had also attended the gathering this year from China, Nigeria, Indonesia and Afghanistan. About 1,500 foreigners have been quarantined in Pakistan, while others left without being tested. Gaza’s health ministry confirmed last month its first two cases of coronavirus were Palestinians who had attended the gathering.

Tablighi Jamaat is considered one of the world’s largest faith-based movements, with millions of followers, particularly in South Asia, and sends preachers to countries to spread Islamic ideas.

Around 5,300 worshippers, who attended the meeting in Lahore, have been kept in isolation in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

“Health officials are conducting tests for coronavirus and some of them have tested positive,” Ajmal Wazir, a spokesperson for the region, told AFP on Sunday. According to Wazir, thousands of preachers from KP were stranded in other regions because of the closure of major highways in the country.

About 7,000 have been quarantined in the central Punjab city Lahore, while in southern Sindh province up to 8,000 Tablighis have been quarantined, government officials said. More than dozens have been forced to self-isolate in Balochistan.

The Tablighi mosques and the other places of worship were shut down or marked as quarantine centers at the end of March.

Pakistan’s science minister Fawad Chaudhry earlier expressed exasperation that the event had gone ahead, blaming the “stubbornness of the clergy”.

Similar Tablighi Jamaat congregations held in Malaysia and India during the coronavirus pandemic have been blamed for spreading the virus to other nations.

Coronavirus has killed at least 54 people in Pakistan so far but with only limited testing available, observers worry the number is far higher.

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