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BSS-50
BANGLADESH-INDIA-TABLIGH-MOMEN
HCB confirms quarantining of 73 Bangladeshi Tabligh activists in Delhi
DHAKA, April 2, 2020 (BSS) – Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen today said
an estimated 73 Bangladeshis were quarantined as Indian authorities detained
in isolation some 2,000 Tabligh activists at the religious mission’s
headquarters in Delhi, fearing it to have turned into a COVID-19 cluster.
“Our High Commission in Delhi has reported that 73 of the quarantined
people at the Tabligh Jamaat’s main centre are Bangladeshis,” Momen told BSS.
He, however, added that Dhaka was yet to confirm about the total number of
Bangladeshi Tabligh activists who reportedly spread in different parts of
India defying COVID-19 alarms and restrictions along with Indians and
nationals of some other countries.
“Dhaka has no information about their whereabouts either in India,” Momen
said as asked about of the Indian home ministry official stated that 493 Bangladeshis
were now in India as part of the Tabligh Jamaat’s religious mission.
Momen said the report was embarrassing for Dhaka as the Bangladeshi
nationals visibly violated the COVID-19 restrictions while other reports
suggested the Tabligh Jamaat’s main centre at Delhi’s Nizamuddin area
virtually turned to be a COVID-19 cluster.
The foreign minister, however, said Dhaka planned to return nearly 1,000
Bangladeshis who went to India on other purposes and became stranded there.
He said Dhaka would take back as well the Bangladeshi Tabligh activists in
India who were tested COVID negative and send them to mandatory 14-day home
quarantine on their return.
He said the foreign ministry asked the Bangladesh mission in Delhi to
prepare a list of stranded Bangladeshis for their return under a special
arrangement in their own cost.
A three-day Tabligh Jamaat event was held from March 13 to 15 in
Nizamuddin Markaz in Delhi where many attendees were tested Covid-19 positive
after their evacuation from the site recently.
Meanwhile, Indian media reports said Tabligh headquarters called back all
the foreign Tabligh teams who spread across India in line with the country’s
home ministry’s directive.
On Wednesday, the Indian home ministry said as many as, 2,000 foreigners
from 70 countries including 493 from Bangladesh, who went to India on Tabligh
mission spread over several Indian states as potential carriers of COVID-19.
According to the Indian home office, of the Tabligh activists on tour
across the country, 472 were Indonesians, 150 were Malaysians and 142 were
Thai nationals.
BSS/SPL/TA/AR/2020 HRS