Patna police on Tuesday arrested 17 foreign nationals and sent them to judicial custody for violating visa norms. Patna District Magistrate Kumar Ravi on Tuesday told India Today TV that the foreigners have already been sent to Beur Central Jail in Patna.

"These 17 preachers have been found to have used tourist visa to enter India but later indulged in religious preaching activities," he said.

Union Home Ministry has already blacklisted and cancelled the tourist visas of 960 foreign Tablighi Jamaat members for violating visa conditions by engaging in missionary activities while in India.

The 17 foreign nationals also participated in the last month’s Tablighi Jamaat event at the Nizamuddin Markaz in Delhi.

Earlier on March 23, the Patna police had detained 10 foreigners from a mosque in Digha locality of the state capital after locals informed the control room.

The detained persons were found to be preachers from Kyrgyzstan. Later seven more preachers from the same country were picked from other locality of Patna.

All of these 17 foreign preachers were tested Covid-19 negative but were placed under quarantine. All 17 have now been sent to judicial custody as their quarantine period came to an end.

The home ministry has also asked the states and union territories to take action against foreign Tablighi Jamaat members for violating the provisions of the Foreigners Act, 1946

They could not only face deportation but also end up paying a penalty.

Earlier, Union Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba told the chief secretaries and DGPs of all states to initiate intensive contact tracing of Tablighi Jamaat participants.

Bihar witnessed an increase in Covid-19 cases after Tablighi Jamaat returnees from the Nizamuddin Markaz came to the state. At least 8 persons in Begusarai and Nawada districts have been found Covid-19 positive after coming in contact with people who attended the Nizamuddin Markaz event.

Bihar police’s action comes just a day after the Uttar Pradesh police arrested 17 residents of Indonesia and Thailand for violating the visa norms.

However, the good news for Bihar is that the state has completed 100 per cent screening of foreign passengers, even though the Centre’s initial guideline adhered to testing symptomatic people.

The state has identified around 3,556 international travellers between March 15 and 23 and samples of 2,254 people have been tested.

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