NEW DELHI: As it battles the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic , the government is also having to contend with growing communal polarisation in the wake of Tablighi Jamaat 's link to rise in positive cases.Senior government sources said that feedback from across the country suggested that the disproportionately large number of positive cases and callous disregard shown by Jamaat members to the well-being of care providers have embittered inter-faith ties, aggravating the challenge at a time when the government is fighting an unprecedented public health challenge.The concern led Prime Minister Narendra Modi to urge chief ministers to enlist the support of faith leaders. They should be told that their respective faiths would survive only if they unitedly defeated coronavirus, sources quoted the PM as telling the CMs.Sources said the conduct of TJ leaders, who disregarded the need to maintain social distancing at the Nizamuddin Markaz in the capital, as well as the way the Jamatis subsequently behaved with doctors and nurses in different hospitals has evoked revulsion among a large section of the populace.Feedback collated from hundreds of places across the country pointed to the damage caused by images of mobs assaulting doctors who went to screen suspected cases as part of contact tracing exercise — something that is crucial to stop community transmission — with individuals spitting at doctors, paramedics and cops as well as boasts that the "faithful" were endowed with ironclad immunity.On Friday, the telecom department told country representatives of Tik Tok, the popular video sharing platform, to take down objectionable material and put in place algorithms to screen out potentially inflammatory content. Sources said the conversation between the two sides was not pleasant with DoT representatives bluntly talking about the "drastic powers" that the government has at its disposal.The government is also in touch with representatives of WhatsApp and Facebook to stanch the surge of hostility, but feels it is facing a daunting task. "It is time to unequivocally condemn what is indefensible and to involve all communities in the fight against the virus," said a senior government source.He expressed hope that Modi's "light a-lamp" campaign may help shift the conversation away from TJ on Sunday evening but more efforts were needed to ensure that governments were not burdened with a law and order challenge at this time.That the risk of communal tension is real was underscored during a meeting the chief minister of a state had convened to discuss the plans to fight coronavirus. Midway through the conversation, a doctor stunned the gathering by saying that the plans were unlikely to succeed as doctors were wary of approaching the Tablighis who had tested positive."The problem is that the Islamic proselytisers don't realise that they have done anything wrong or that they need to submit themselves to the norms required for dealing with a full-blown public health emergency," the veteran doctor said. His forthright comments were endorsed by all the attendees at the video conference.