Nizamuddin
Rajiv Gauba asked them to take action against foreigners, who have participated in the missionary activities of the Tablighi Jamaat, for violation of visa conditions.
During the meeting, the states and UTS were sensitised about the intensive contact tracing of the participants as this has increased the risk of containment efforts of Covid-19 in the country, an official statement said.
Even as the Centre issued directions, officials across the country continued their frantic search for the Nizamuddin attendees. The Uttar Pradesh government identified and put under quarantine as many as 569 people who attended the religious congregation at Nazamuddin, additional chief secretary, home, Awanish Awasthi said.
About 538 people who attended the Jamaat congregation have visited 13 districts of Rajasthan, state DGP Bhupendra Singh said. Uttarakhand has put 173 of 713 people who attended the meeting under quarantined, state DGP Ashok Kumar said.
As many as 252 persons, including at least a dozen Indonesians, who went to Delhi have been traced in various cities of Maharashtra, including Pune and Mumbai, a senior state official said.
Karnataka home minister Basavaraj Bommai said 342 persons from the state had gone to the Nizamuddin. Authorities in Gujarat said at least 1,500 people from the state were present in Delhi.
The infections at Tablighi Jamaat came to light around March 25 when contact-tracing efforts in Telangana connected the markaz — the six-storey building of the Jamaat — to the infections of 10 Indonesians who developed the disease and were hospitalised in Hyderabad. Six of those Indonesians have since succumbed to the disease.
A Delhi Transport Corporation official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said people were brought out of the building in batches of 30-35. “They were screened for their body temperatures and then taken to hospitals or quarantine centres in DTC buses. The [bus] drivers wore protective suits. No conductors were deployed since health officials were escorting them.”
By 1 pm on Wednesday, workers wearing decontamination suits sanitised the building, the plants outside and the path the evacuees had walked. Dr Vivekanand Bhagat, a deputy health officer who supervised the work, said it took them around two hours to sanitise the building that stands on a 1,000 square yard plot.
Harish Kumar, a sanitation worker, said they sprayed every corner of the building even as parts of it were damp due to the absence of sunlight. Kumar said there are mostly large halls in the building with beddings spread out. “Rows and rows of mattresses were spread out in the halls and floor after floor.”
A health official involved in the evacuation process, who did not wish to be named, said the Delhi government ordered the closure of cinema halls on March 12, saying they do not get sunlight and people sit in close proximity for long hours there. “The scene inside the markaz [headquarters] was exactly the same. Despite being aware of the outbreak, there was no social distancing practised inside,” he said.
The Delhi Police on Tuesday filed a case against the Jamaat functionaries for flouting social distancing rules formulated to check the spread of the pandemic.
Tauseef Khan, a lawyer representing the Jamaat, said social distancing inside was not possible and that is why Markaz functionaries repeatedly urged the government for help once the three-week national lockdown was announced on March 25 and hundreds of people were stuck in the building.
The South Delhi Municipal Corporation continued sanitising operations in Nizamuddin Basti, Nizamuddin West and other areas adjoining the Jamaat headquarters on Wednesday. A team of 40 people, with sodium hypochlorite (a disinfectant) on shoulder-mounted knapsack pumps and three tractor-driven tankers, sanitised the area.
A police station near the building, too, has been sanitised. “Some of us have taken the road on which the Markaz is located as part of our policing duty. We were also actively involved in the evacuation process. We know the threat that we exposed ourselves to, but this is part of our job,” said a policeman.
Delhi health department officials said of the 617 hospitalised evacuees, over 200 are in Lok Nayak, some 130 in Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality hospitals and 100 in All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Jhajjar. The rest have been admitted to the Deen Dayal Upadhyay and Guru Teg Bahadur hospitals
Lieutenant governor Anil Baijal separately held a review meeting with chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, Sisodia and all the district magistrates. “He has issued directions to utilise fire brigades to disinfect Nizamuddin and Dilshad Garden, both of which are top coronavirus hot spots,” said an official.