Fifty Tablighi Jamaat members who had attended the Markaz Nizamuddin event have switched off their mobile phones and are trying to hide from health authorities, Maharashtra Home Ministry has revealed.

The police is making frenetic efforts to to locate them across the state.

Maharashtra's Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said that the 50 Tablighi Jamaat members who visited Delhi's Nizamuddin and came to Maharashtra are still missing. The administration will take strict action against those who are trying to hide having symptoms or Markaz connection, added Deshmukh.

More than 200 people from Mahrashtra had attended Markaz that took place in the month of March.

The Azad Maidan police in Mumbai city on Tuesday (Apr 7) initiated criminal action against 150 participants of the Tablighi Jamaat Markaz (gathering), at Nizamuddin in New Delhi, for refusing to report their attendance in the event to civic authorities,

Earlier reports suggested that state police is struggling to confirm the exact number of people from the state who attended the mid-March Tablighi Jamaat gathering in New Delhi. The police was scanning hundreds of numbers using a method called ‘dump data analysis’.

The number of coronavirus cases in Maharashtra crossed 1,000 today, according to news agency PTI. One hundred and fifty persons tested positive for coronavirus infection in Maharashtra on Tuesday, taking the number of COVID-19 patients in the state to 1,018. With this, Maharashtra becomes the first state in the country to report more than 1,000 coronavirus cases.