The world is grappling with the increasing menace of Wuhan virus. India has not been left unscathed by the deadly virus either and the total number of cases has reached 2,567 with 72 deaths. Globally the number of infected cases has gone beyond one million. However, India was seemingly on its way to flatten the curve but then happened the hara-kiri Tablighi Jamaat conundrum. Since the news broke about the incident, the cases all around the country have seen an exponential rise with most of the cases being linked to the congregation.
Understandably the media started reporting the incident far and wide—from the Jamaat violating the governmental orders to hate speech by its absconding Maulana Saad to its alleged terrorist links. Every single detail about the Jamaat and its followers under the sun came out courtesy the media.
So when a twitter user by the name Riaz Ahmed, visibly upset by the media coverage started questioning Asia News International’s (ANI) coverage of the event by tweeting “In last 46 hours, @ANI posted 97 reports related to Nizamuddin, so much dedication, because?”
https://twitter.com/karmariaz/status/1245623849753821185?s=20
The Editor-in-chief of ANI Smita Prakash was quick to retort back and her reply was absolutely epic, “We will post 997 posts till every Tablighi who was at markaz is not found, quarantined and cleared of COVID. This single cluster has resulted in a severe setback to India’s efforts in containing the pandemic. We won’t be bullied by trolls. Keep counting.”
We will post 997 posts till every Tablighi who was at markaz is not found, quarantined and cleared of Covid. This single cluster has resulted in a severe setback to India's efforts in containing the pandemic. We won't be bullied by trolls. Keep counting. https://t.co/6iGyEm10vl
— Smita Prakash (@smitaprakash) April 2, 2020
Smita Prakash shut the troll effortlessly as the left and ‘secular’ media tried to defend the Tablighi Jamaat which has set India’s attempt to thwart the virus outbreak a month or two back, according to some reports. India recorded a spike in COVID-19 positive cases by over 400 in the past 24 hours as the contagion continues to spread across the country. The sudden jump in cases is linked to the Muslim gathering event. No doubt, the epic reply by Smita Prakash has won over Twitter.
Tablighi Jamaat had organized a Muslim congregation at Alami Markaz Banglewali Masjid in the Nizamuddin area of South Delhi- the global center for Tablighi Network, that was attended by around 2000 people from Islamic preachers across India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Saudi Arabia earlier this month. The congregation has snowballed into a full-fledged epidemic in Delhi and beyond.
Tablighi Jamaat’s Chinese Wuhan virus rigmarole started from Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur and soon spread to several nations as the jamaat’s despots and members jumped countries for their religious international congregations.
The Muslim cult had also organized the fateful four-day Muslim gathering at the Sri Petaling Mosque in Kuala Lumpur attended by 16,000 people including 1,500 foreigners. At the time of writing this story, there were 3,333 confirmed Wuhan virus cases in Malaysia with 53 deaths and nearly two-thirds of those cases being attributed to this religious gathering that was held from February 27 to March 1, making it the epicenter of the Wuhan virus outbreak in Southeast Asia.
Most of the 133 Wuhan virus cases in Brunei are tied to the gathering. Eleven out of twelve people who tested positive for COVID-19 on March 16 in Cambodia had attended the Islamic evangelical event in Malaysia. Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia, which had nearly 700 of their citizens attend the poorly planned event, are all investigating.
The Jamaat recklessly repeated its mistakes of Malaysia and organized a congregation in Lahore that brought together tens of thousands of Islamic preachers from some 80 countries. With thousands of people assembling in a cramped space, Lahore has also emerged as a potential infection cluster of the Wuhan virus.
In Pakistan, four people in the southern province of Sindh who attended the gathering were infected with the virus whereas five preachers from Kyrgyzstan who stayed in a mosque in Islamabad after attending the gathering were also tested positive.
The Union Home Ministry issued an order that blacklisted around 800 preachers from Indonesia who came on a tourist visa and participated in the Tablighi Jamaat congregation. “They came here on a tourist visa but were participating in religious conferences, this is a violation of visa rules. We are going to blacklist around 800 Indonesian preachers so that in future they are not able to enter the country,”
Tablighi Jamaat has acted irresponsibly and the recent developments of its followers—behaving rudely with the nurses, pelting stones at the doctors do not evoke any kind of sympathy from our side and anyone condoning such behavior should understand that they are part of the problem.
