141 new cases in Delhi in one day: Thanks to Tablighi Jamaat

World Bank approved USD 1-billion emergency financing for India to tackle the coronavirus outbreak, which has claimed 76 lives and infected 2,500 others in the country.

The World Bank's first set of aid projects, amounting to USD 1.9 billion, will assist 25 countries.

The largest chunk of the emergency financial assistance has gone to India -- USD 1 billion.

"In India, USD 1 billion emergency financing will support better screening, contact tracing, and laboratory diagnostics; procure personal protective equipment; and set up new isolation wards," the World Bank said after its Board of Executive Directors approved the first set of emergency support operations for developing countries around the world, using a dedicated, fast-track facility for COVID-19 response.

World Bank also approved USD 200 million for Pakistan, USD 100 million for Afghanistan, USD 7.3 million for Maldives and USD 128.6 million for Sri Lanka.

There will be a strong poverty alleviation focus in these operations.

Hindu groups in India have accused a Muslim evangelical event of turning New Delhi into a hotbed of coronavirus infection, threatening to snowball the discussions into a Hindu-Muslim war of words.
Several Hindu groups have demanded the arrest and punishment of organizers of the mid-March conference in the Nizamuddin area after police last week moved hundreds to hospitals with symptoms of Covid-19.

The influential Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has described the Nizamuddin meet as a "corona factory" and demanded that Muslims "should come forward and close with immediate effect all the mosques in India that are still open."

"A corona-infected deceased must be mandatorily cremated irrespective of religious affiliation to stop the spread of the infection," it said in a call to follow the Hindu custom of cremation instead of the Muslim tradition of burial.

The comments came after police on March 31 completed evacuation of more than 2,000 Muslim preachers from the headquarters of Islamic missionary group Tablighi Jamaat in Nizamuddin. An estimated 40 percent of them now show signs of Covid-19.

Thane police in Maharashtra registered cases against trustees of a madrasa and a mosque in Mumbra area in Maharashtra.
They gave shelter to Bangladeshi and Malaysian nationals who had visited congregation of the Tablighi Jamaat in Delhi.

The trustees of the two institutions violated prohibitory orders during lockdown and many other laws by giving shelter to these persons, the police said.

The madrasa had given shelter to eight Malaysian nationals and two persons from outside Maharashtra since March 23.

The mosque was found to have given shelter to 13 Bangladeshi nationals and two from other states.

Cases were registered under the Foreigners' Act, Disaster Management Act, Epidemic Diseases Act and relevant IPC sections. 

Lawlessness begins in Bengal: Cops attacked, Devotees throng temples during Ram Navami

West Bengal reported 16 fresh COVID-19 cases on Thursday, the highest spike in the number of cases so far in a single day, even as policemen were attacked in some parts of the state while enforcing the lockdown to combat the coronavirus outbreak.

The state administration seems to be a divided house over the number of COVID-19 cases, with the health department saying the total figure is 53 and Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha pegging it at 34 active cases.

"In the last 24 hours, 16 fresh cases have been reported in Bengal. The total number of cases in the state is 53. The death toll is seven and three persons have been cured. So the number of active cases is 43," a senior health department official told a press conference at the state secretariat.

He, however, did not divulge the details of the new cases.

Within an hour, Sinha conducted a media briefing, where he brought down the figure of positive cases to 37 -- what Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had said on Wednesday.

Banerjee had asserted that of the six deaths till Wednesday, three persons had died of coronavirus and the remaining three passed away due to other underlying ailments such as kidney disorder, but media houses were raising the figure for the sake of sensationalism.

"The total number of active coronavirus cases is 34 now and three others have died due to COVID-19," Sinha said.

Opposition parties CPI(M) and BJP were quick to slam Banerjee for "trying to hide" the actual figures of COVID-19 deaths and active cases, and asked her to refrain from such "illegal action", which would be counterproductive.

"The chief minister is trying to hide the death figure. This is absurd. What is there to be ashamed of? She should not hide the truth. This will adversely affect the entire process of containing the outbreak," state BJP chief Dilip Ghosh said.

He claimed that Banerjee had earlier tried to hide the dengue death figure too.

During the 2017 dengue outbreak in the state, Banerjee had claimed that some private healthcare units were reporting deaths from an "unknown fever" as deaths caused by dengue to "malign" her government.

CPI(M) state secretary Surya Kanta Mishra echoed Ghosh and said it was for doctors to certify the reason behind the deaths and not the chief minister.

"It is absurd and unethical to claim that people died due to kidney ailments and other diseases even after being tested positive for coronavirus. If she (Banerjee) is doing it, it is an illegal intervention. This should immediately stop," he said.

Senior Congress MP Pradip Bhattacharya demanded that the state government reveal the actual figures instead of "hiding" those.

Meanwhile, at least nine policemen were injured in some parts of the state while enforcing the ongoing 21-day lockdown to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

Stones were thrown at quick response teams in South 24 Parganas and West Midnapore districts when they stopped people from assembling.

In two incidents at the Bhangore area of South 24 Parganas and Goaltore in West Midnapore, police personnel were beaten up when patrolling teams stopped youngsters from gathering.

A sub-inspector, two assistant sub-inspectors and six constables were injured in the two incidents.

Five persons were arrested for their alleged involvement in the Bhangore incident.

Meanwhile, scores of devotees assembled in temples in various parts of the state on the occasion of Ram Navami, giving a thumbs down to the social-distancing norms prescribed by the government during the ongoing nationwide lockdown.

141 new cases in Delhi in one day: Thanks to Tablighi Jamaat

Maulana Saad Kandhalvi, the head of the Nizamuddin Markaz is still absconding.

In an audio clip, he said he has quarantined himself on doctors' advice. The police have already registered an FIR against him and is on a lookout.

"We should help and support our government in dealing with this crisis. I have also quarantined myself in Delhi under instructions from doctors. This precautionary measure is not against the principle of faith so it's important to adopt such steps," he said in an audio clip.

"I appeal to all my jamaat to follow the instruction of our government," Saad said in the clip.

Two more persons, both evacuated from Tablighi Jamaat's Nizamuddin Markaz here, died of coronavirus, taking the death toll in the national capital to four while the number of positive cases also rose sharply to 293, the Delhi government on Thursday.

The figure of COVID-19 cases on Wednesday in Delhi was 152. The total number of 293 cases includes 182 people who took part in a religious congregation of the Jamaat last month.

The number may shoot up in the coming days as the government has decided to test all those who were evacuated from the Markaz, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said in a digital press conference.

The Markaz has emerged as a hotspot of coronavirus cases in Delhi.

A total of 2,943 people, including 1,810 from the Markaz, have been quarantined by the government, Kejriwal said, adding 21,307 people have been directed for self-quarantine at their homes.

He appealed to Delhiites to stay indoors and follow the ongoing 21-day lockdown.

On Wednesday, the Delhi government, in coordination with the police, evacuated over 2,000 people. Since then the building has been sealed and area sanitised.

The Delhi Fire Service personnel were also roped in for disinfecting the area.

Maulana Saad said there has been no doubt that this pandemic is the "result of sins we humans have been committing".

Instructions of ulemas, government, and doctors need to be followed and no one should stray out of home and organise gatherings, he added.

The Delhi Police Special Branch has also identified and quarantined 275 foreign nationals, who have been staying in various mosques in the city after attending the Jamaat's congregation.

Four members of Tablighi Jamaat, including three foreign nationals, test positive for coronavirus in Bhopal

With 75 new cases -- mostly linked to Tablighi Jamaat, Tamil Nadu moves ahead of Kerala (256 active cases) to the second spot in the country.

Tamil Nadu now has a total of 309 COVID-19 patients behind Maharashtra (416).

Most southern states continued to witness surge in their respective COVID19 numbers for the second day in a row on Thursday, with a majority of the infected being returnees from the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in a New Delhi locality last month, officials said.

Governments in Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, among the badly affected with virtually all of the new patients having link with the Nizammudin West event in Delhi, stepped up efforts to identify all those who participated in the religious meet and screen them.

On Wednesday, Tamil Nadu had reported a whopping 110 people, all returnees from the jamat event, testing positive.

Among the 21 fresh positive cases reported from Kerala on Thursday, two had attended the Nizamuddin congregation.

Twenty-seven fresh cases of coronavirus were confirmed in Telangana on Thursday, taking the tally in the state to 154 with the active cases at 128, state Health Minister E Rajender said.

The state has seen the most fatalities with the COVID-19 toll rising to nine in the state late on Wednesday with the death of three more persons who returned from the Delhi congregation.

All the nine deceased had a history of attending the religious meeting at Nizamuddin in south Delhi.

Altogether, 17 people had been discharged.

The Karnataka government reported 14 new COVID-19 cases, including ten men, who had attended the Tablighi congregation, and a woman who had contact with a Delhi returnee, on Thursday, taking the total to 124.

State Health Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey said based on inputs given by police and central government, nearly 1,000 people linked to Tablighi Jamat, have been screened till Thursday morning and swab samples of more than 200 had been drawn and sent for tests.

"...out of nearly 100 preliminary test results, 11 from Bidar dist are positive. Contact tracing and isolation works are already on," he said in a statement.

Nizamuddin West has emerged as an epicentre for the spread of coronavirus in different parts of the country after thousands of people took part in the Tablighi Jamaat congregation from March 1-15 and returned to their states.

Tamil Nadu, which like many states has put in an aggressive mechanism to tackle the spread of coronavirus, however continued to witness steep increase in daily addition to the aggregate number of positive coronavirus cases.

Of the 75 new cases reported, as many as 74 were returnees from the recent congregation held in Nizamuddin and another was a contact of a person infected earlier, Health Secretary Beela Rajesh said.

A total of 264 people among those who had attended the religious conference from the state in the national capital have tested positive for the contagion, she told reporters.

Andhra Pradesh too saw an upswing in the number, with 32 coronavirus cases being detected since Wednesday night, taking the state's tally to 143.

All the fresh cases in the state too were related to the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in New Delhi, from where COVID19 has been spreading fast.

"About 16 per cent of those who attended the Jamaat event tested positive in the state," the state nodal officer for COVID19 Arja Srikanth said.

Also, 20 of their contacts too got afflicted with the disease.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said at least 157 people from the state had participated in the jamaat event and that they were all under observation.