Speaking about the massive surge in the number of coronavirus cases in Ahmedabad, the chief minister of Gujarat, Vijay Rupani, held the congregation organised at Markaz Nizamuddin in Delhi in mid-March by the Islamic seminary Tablighi Jamaat squarely responsible for the irrepressible rise in the number of COVID-19 cases in the city.
In an event organised by AajTak-E Agenda, the chief minister of Gujarat said that the spurt in the number of coronavirus cases in the state came to light around April 15 as the “people related to Jamaat” hid their links with the Markaz event in Delhi in March.
Rupani said, “Ahmedabad is divided into two, Old Ahmedabad and New Ahmedabad. New Ahmedabad has 90 per cent population and Old Ahmedabad has 10 per cent. But because Jamaat people hid their travel links, Old Ahmedabad has reported 90 per cent of corona cases with just 10 per cent population.”
In addition to Ahmedabad, Surat is another big city that is badly hit by the scourge of coronavirus. “People of Tablighi Jamaat extensively travelled in Surat and Ahmedabad and deliberately concealed their travel result. As a result, these two cities are witnessing an unprecedented uptick in the number of COVID-19 cases reported by the authorities,” Rupani said.
While holding Tablighi Jamaat accountable for the menacing rise of coronavirus cases in the state, Rupani added that the state government was nimble in taming the intractable contagion. Talking about the containment measures instituted by the Gujarat government to tackle the COVID-19 crisis, Rupani said, “We have stressed on surveillance and tests. Ahmedabad and Surat form more than 80 per cent of cases. In both cities, more than 500 teams are doing door-to-door surveys.”
Rupani became the fourth chief minister to lay the blame of the uncontrollable rise of coronavirus cases in their states on Tablighi Jamaat. Prior to Rupani, UP CM Yogi Adityanath, Uttarakhand CM Triveni Singh Rawat, and Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan had all held the orthodox Islamic organisation responsible for the spurt in the coronavirus cases in their respective states.
Of late, there has been an alarming rise in the number of positive coronavirus cases in Gujarat. The sudden spike in the count of COVID-19 cases in Gujarat has propelled it to the number 2 in the list of states with the highest infection, only behind Maharashtra, who leads the tally quite decisively. As of the latest figures, the total number of infected in Gujarat stands at 4,721 with 236 fatalities.
The epicentre of coronavirus outbreak in India- Tablighi Jamaat
The Tablighi Jamaat time bomb erupted across the country in the last week of March when around 200 people with Wuhan Coronavirus symptoms were admitted to various hospitals in Delhi from the Markaz Nizamuddin and surrounding places. Subsequently, the area around the Markaz Nizamuddin was cordoned off by the Delhi Police. Soon, cases began to erupt across the country with links to the Tablighi Jamaat and the country stood horrified as the magnitude of the Islamic Missionary organization’s transgressions became known. But even so, a significant section of the media and the political class is going out of its way to whitewash and hide the crimes of the Tablighi Jamaat. By some estimates, it is believed that the 30 per cent of the country’s total coronavirus infection is linked back to the Tablighi Jamaat congregation.