Anuraag Singh By

Express News Service

BHOPAL: As many as 64 foreign nationals now staying in Bhopal, who attended Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi last month, have been booked for spreading coronavirus, violation of official orders and visa rules.

The Tablighi event attendees are from Indonesia, Myanmar and Ivory Coast. The foreign nationals along with their 10 Indian aides and 13 local resident have been booked at five police stations of Bhopal.

The cases have been registered at Aishbagh, Shyamala Hills, Mangalwara, Talaiya and Piplani police stations under IPC Sections 188 (disobedience to order promulgated by public servant), 269 and 270 (negligent act likely to spread of disease dangerous to life), besides Sections 13 and 14 of the Foreigners Act 1946 and Section 51 of the National Disaster Management Act 2005.

Maximum 29 foreign nationals have been booked at the Aishbagh police station. Most of the foreign Tablighi Jamaat members were found staying in mosques in that police station area of Old Bhopal.

Around 20 of these Jamaatis have already tested positive for cCoronavirus, while the rest have been quarantined. Most of these Jamaatis had come to Bhopal in the first week of March.

According to additional director general of police (ADG-Bhopal Zone) Upendra Jain, all those against whom the cases have been registered are either being treated in hospitals after being found COVID-19 positive or have been quarantined. “They will be arrested only after it’s medically established that they are healthy and not spreading any infection,” Jain said.