Tablighi Jamaat Chief Maulana Azad
A Delhi Police crime branch team on Thursday raided Tablighi Jamaat chief Maulana Saad Kandhalvi's farmhouse in order to trace him. The farm-house is located in Uttar Pradesh Shamli's Kandhla. Maulana Saad is being searched by the law enforcement authorities after Delhi's Tablighi Jamaat incident when people in large numbers were found in a massive gathering who had come from different parts of the world to take part in a religious congregation. The event took place when the Delhi government has already issued guidelines on maintaining social distancing amid coronavirus outbreak. As a result of this event, a large of Jamaatis, who after the congregation travelled to different places within in India and world, have tested positive for coronavirus.
Tablighi Jamaat chief Maulana Saad, who went into quarantine and has not come in public, is being searched by the authorities to question him in relation to the Tablighi Jamaat event following which coronavirus cases in the country exploded. The Delhi police crime branch team has reached Saad's house with a PPE kit maintain all the precautions amid the outbreak to search for Jamaat chief.
Earlier, Maulana Saad Kandhalvi, who has been booked by the Delhi Police for holding the religious congregation at Delhi's Nizamuddin during the lockdown, urged the followers of the organisation to pray at home in the month of Ramzan. "I request all, both in India and abroad, to strictly follow the guidelines and instructions of the local or national governments and till the time restrictions are in place and please observe prayers at home. And even in this, we should not invite people from outside," Maulana Saad said in an audiotape.
While addressing an online briefing on Sunday, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal cited the Tablighi Jamaat congregation last month, a major hotspot, and the large inflow of travellers from other countries to Delhi as the reasons for the spread of the virus, and said the city was "fighting a difficult battle".
The Delhi Police crime branch, had on March 31, lodged an FIR against seven people, including the cleric, on a complaint by the Station House Officer of Nizamuddin police station for holding the congregation in alleged violation of the orders against large gatherings to contain the spread of coronavirus.
Later, the Indian Penal Code Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) was added to the FIR.
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