INSIDE A SUPER SPREAD

How a religious outfit’s congregations have been responsible for a virulent spread of COVID-19 in India and parts of South Asia

- Sonali Acharjee and Uday Mahurkar with Gulam Jeelani

AS the number of novel coronavirus cases in India crossed 2,000, the Nizamuddin basti neighbourhood in South Delhi has emerged as the country’s pandemic hotspot. A gathering of an estimated 3,400 members and preachers of the Tablighi Jamaat here in early March has left a trail of infection and deaths from Kashmir to Tamil Nadu to even the Andaman Islands. Hundreds among the attendees resided, in close proximity, in the six-storey dormitory at Banglewali Mosque, the markaz or global headquarters of the organisation in Nizamuddin. The Jamaat is a global Islamic evangelical movement that originated in India in 1927.

As of April 2, 15 COVID-19-related deaths in the country had been linked to the March 10-13 congregation at the markaz—nine in Telangana, two in Delhi, and one each in Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The dead include a Filipino national, say, officials. Around 400 attendees have tested positive for novel coronavirus. Around 9,000 people—Jamaat members and their primary contacts—have been quarantined across the country. Of these, some 1,800 people are under watch in nine hospitals and quarantine centres in Delhi. “The recent rise in COVID-19 cases in India does not represent a national trend. The numbers rose because of [infections caused by] the movement of people of the Tablighi Jamaat,” said Lav Agarwal, joint secretary, Union ministry for health, at a media briefing on April 1.