Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury

Following the sudden increase in the number of coronavirus affected people in India, Tablighi Jamaat (TJ) and its congregation in the Indian capital Delhi have come under criticism, as some of the top brasses of this notorious group had asked the followers to consider coronavirus as a blessing from Allah to destroy the Hindus. The TJ leaders called upon their people to wage #coronajihad with the goal of spreading this amongst hundreds and millions of Hindus.

But, immediately after such notorious activities of the TJ members were exposed by anti-radical Islam media in India and Bangladesh, several newspapers in India, as well as a number of influential Western media, have started syndicated propaganda clearly with the agenda of saving Tablighi Jamaat from a possible legal consequence.

It may be mentioned here that, during the challenging situation of coronavirus pandemic, when the Indian government has been working hard in saving its huge population from being hit by Covid-19, a notorious nexus of jihadists, under the patronization of Pakistani spy agency Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) have declared #coronajihad, with the notorious agenda of infecting and killing hundreds of millions of Hindus thus finally bringing India under the flag of radical Islam.

Defying country-wide lockdown in India, more than two thousand members of the radical Tablighi Jamaat attended its congregation from March 13-15 at Markaz in Nizamuddin area in the Indian capital New Delhi. During this congregation, leaders of Tablighi Jamaat had called upon the coronavirus infected members of the group to consider coronavirus as a blessing from Allah and use it as a weapon for spreading the virus amongst the ‘infidels’.

Intelligence agencies suspect some of those who had attended the Tablighi Jamaat event had ISIS connections and that the open defiance of the lockdown was a result of the terror organization’s or other Islamic terror groups’ instructions to them to turn into virtual human bombs, which they could do even as carriers of coronavirus.

Security experts say, these missing TJ men are most likely engaged in spreading Covid-19 amongst the non-Muslim populace in India.

However, #coronajihad started trending on Twitter soon after the death of patients who attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation. Twitter users said that the congregation was organized, flouting Delhi government’s orders against gatherings.

According to a Twitter user, Corona Jihad is “Infected Muslims want to go and spread Corona to Kafirs (Infidels) so they can die in hundreds of thousands. Their Idea: A few hundred Muslims will die, but they can make up for it by making more children. Use the Corona to kill more Kafirs”.

Unfortunately, a segment of the mainstream media in India is either unwilling of failing yet to understand the gravity of the threat posed by Tablighi Jamaat. Some of the Indian media even are making frantic bids in portraying Tablighi Jamaat as an innocent organization that counters jihad. What those Indian media pundits do not understand is, Tablighi Jamaat has been proved to have links with jihadist outfits in a number of countries”.

Coronavirus infected Muslims in India are spreading the virus through licking currency notes as well by wiping nose on it, at the clear instruction from a few top brasses in the organization. Coronavirus contaminated currency notes are being circulated into a number of western nations as well as Israel. Pakistani spy agency Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) has been smuggling out coronavirus contaminated currency notes into India through a number of cross-border smuggling rackets.

A twitter message from the Nashik Rural Police in India claimsd, it has taken actions against a Muslim man whose video of licking and wiping nose with a bunch of currency notes and calling Coronavirus a punishment by Allah was doing rounds on social media.

The video showed a Muslim man taking a bunch of currency notes and licking them with his tongue and wiping his nose with them. He says that the coronavirus has no treatment because it is sent by ‘Allah’, implying that he is going to pass those currency notes around, to spread the disease.

The Muslim man in the video uses few 500 denomination notes to wipe his nose and mouth as he looks into the camera and says: “There is no cure for a disease like corona because it is the punishment of Allah, for you people.”

According to a credible intelligence source, attendees at the Tablighi Jamaat in India were asked by some of the leaders to spread coronavirus amongst the non-Muslim society through currency notes by licking and wiping the nose of the Covid-19 patients.

A similar message was passed onto radical Muslims and members of Tablighi Jamaat in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, Russia, and Israel. Muslims are reportedly contaminating those currency notes with Covid-19 virus by sitting at their homes or the community mosques and later circulating amongst non-Muslims. This trend is at an alarming level in the United Kingdom, in particular, where this “coronajihad” tactic is being followed by the members and supporters of Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, Hamas, and other jihadist outfits.

Although Pakistani spy agency ISI has been circulating counterfeit Indian currency notes for decades, in recent times it has started circulating real currency notes, which are being contaminated with coronavirus. During the past few weeks, Pakistani spy agency reportedly has circulated more than four billion Indian rupees of various denominations.

Media’s enthusiasm in saving TJ

On June 24, 2019 a report titled ‘Qatar spending millions of dollars in buying western media’, Martha Lee, a research fellow at the Middle East Forum and Sam Westrap, director of the Forum’s Islamist Watch Project wrote, “On June 4, the Washington Times published a “special section” of articles lavishing praise on Qatar, its institutions, and its global influence. Each of these articles was labeled as “sponsored,” although the Times neglects to say by whom. At first glance, this is a surprising insertion in a conservative paper whose editorial board has previously been critical of the Middle Eastern state.

“While Qatari money is everywhere, in previous years its influence had been perceived mostly on the American left. Qatar’s media empire Al Jazeera, for example, operates a social media platform named AJ+, which has partnered with hard left-leaning American outlets such as the Young Turks.

“Meanwhile, prominent think tanks such as the Brookings Institution have received tens of millions from Doha. Brookings got $15 million in 2013, and at least $2 million in just the past year — perhaps much more. Such generosity has afforded Brookings a plush center in Doha. Meanwhile, the Qatari regime enjoys a steady flow of academic papers downplaying the kingdom’s patronage of violent Islamism and painting its ties to designated terror groups as nothing more than earnest attempts at dialogue, carried out in an attempt to acquire influence for the sake of benevolence”.

On June 27, 2019 in another report titled ‘Qatar desperately spending money in buying politicians and media’, Anita Mathur, Senior Correspondent of Blitz wrote, “In recent years, Qatar has become aggressive in establishing its influence over international media and politicians. For the past few years although, Qatari money has been circulating almost everywhere – from media to politics. In the United States, Qatar’s media empire Al Jazeera, for example, operates a social media platform named AJ+, which has patynered with hard left-leaning American outlets such as the Young Turks. American left is under formidable control of Doha, while there are indications of Qatar investing millions of dollars during the 2020-presidential election in the US with the clear mission of defeating President Donald Trump. A number of Democratic Party’s possible candidates, such as Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris have already been approached by Qatari agents offering a huge amount of money for election expenses as well as for their personal spending. Opposition leader Nancy Pelosi also is having deep-covered connections with Qatar through one of her family members. Clintons had earlier received a significant amount of “donation” from their Qatari “friends”.

In the lengthy report, Ms. Mathur has elaborately described as to how Qatar and other Muslim nations are spending lavishly in buying the voice of the media in the world. It may be mentioned here that, Qatar is known for its policy of patronizing radical Islam, antisemitism and jihad.

Pro-TJ media propaganda

Immediately after Tablighi Jamaat’s notorious agenda of waging #coronajihad was exposed by a section of Indian and international media, Qatar’s pro-jihadist broadcast network Al Jazeera had immediately jumped and started propaganda in favor of TJ. In those reports, Al Jazeera had accused the Indian government and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for “anti-Muslim repressive policy”.

One of the leading English dailies, Times of India wrote: “Here in India, no other group has been demonized more than the country’s 200 million Muslims, minorities in a Hindu-dominated land of 1.3 billion people”.

Another English daily the Midday in a report titled ‘Burden of being a Muslim’ wrote: “The burden of the Muslim identity has felt particularly unbearable during the 21-day national lockdown ordered to check the spread of Coronavirus. With social transactions reduced substantially, and everyone face-to-face with death, it was presumed that the politics of hate would hit the pause button. We failed to reckon that the vocation of TV anchors and the avocation of Hindu radicals are to demonize Muslims. Both quickly latched on to the criminally irresponsible behaviour of the Tablighi Jamaat to read sinister meanings into their decision to continue with the three-day congregation marked in their annual calendar months earlier”.

The Wire, in an oped titled ‘The Coronavirus Has Morphed Into an Anti-Muslim Virus’ wrote: “The pandemic and severe lockdowns are a time of immense dislocation and dread for all Indians, as the country fights a malign mutating virus with no cure. But it is particularly a time of despair and desolation if you are an Indian Muslim”.

The Washington Post in an editorial titled ‘The world’s largest democracy should set a pandemic-response example. So far, it hasn’t’ wrote: “Mr. Modi is not the only one resorting to heavy-handed measures in the name of defeating the virus. Venezuela’s autocratic regime has deployed the same security forces that violently put down protest marches to force people into their homes. In Kenya, riot police used tear gas and beatings to enforce a dusk-to-dawn curfew. But as the world’s largest democracy, India ought to be setting a standard for how the emergency can be met without resort to repression or censorship. So far, it has not done so”.

The Guardian in a report titled ‘Coronavirus conspiracy theories targeting Muslims spread in India’ wrote: “The situation got so bad last week that it prompted Equality Labs, a US-based south Asian human rights organisation researching Islamophobic hate speech, to release a statement urging the World Health Organization to “issue further guidelines against Covid-19 hate speech and disconnect it to religious communities”.

The Gulf News in its report titled ‘COVID-19: And now it is ‘corona jihad’ in Narendra Modi’s hate-filled new India’ wrote: “The Modi [Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi] government’s calculation seems to be to turn pandemic panic into electoral gold”.

TIME in a report titled ‘It Was Already Dangerous to Be Muslim in India. Then Came the Coronavirus’ wrote: “Coming just weeks after religious pogroms conducted by Hindu nationalists left 36 Muslims dead in Delhi, the surge in hateful tweets demonstrates how anxieties over the coronavirus have merged with longstanding Islamophobia in India, at a time when the Muslim minority — 200 million people in a nation of 1.3 billion — feels increasingly targeted by the ruling Hindu nationalists”.

Clearly, India is under massive media assault. Most of the mainstream media in the world, including New York Times, Huffington Post, Vice News, BBC, Anadolu Agency, Foreign Policy, AL Jazeera, Straits Times, South China Morning Post and many other newspapers and broadcast networks are engaged into demonizing India and the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, for the “crime” of unearthing #coronajihad and initiating legal action against Tablighi Jamaat. A syndicated propaganda is currently continuing in the world with the agenda of making India into a worst villain in the eyes of the international community, and also branding Hindus as religious bigots.

Is Tablighi Jamaat a terrorist outfit?

Before giving reply to this question, let me make a point very clear. Amid the wildly fluctuating numbers of coronavirus infected people, that are floating around in the Indian media, one thing is certain. Around four thousand Islamist preachers from India and around the world gathered in New Delhi for the event in mid-March and post an outbreak amid the cluster, the preachers fanned out across India, carrying out “chilla” (proselytising activity) and spreading the virus in the nook and corners of India spanning 20 states.

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, that studied the outbreak in Wuhan, China, each infected patient would spread the virus to at least 2.2 individuals, meaning, those Tablighi Jamaat men might have infected above ten thousand people already. The figure could have been several folds higher as we already know, there TJ men were on purpose infecting their target as part of coronajihad. The situation in India due to the Tablighi Jamaat spreaders is not unlike that in South Korea where more than half of the cases were linked to a secretive religious sect called the Shincheonji Church of Jesus. One super spreader had managed to infect 37 individuals in a week — an unusually high number of people — eventually leading to a surge in cases. As the New York Times points out, members of the proselytizing faith eventually accounted for a large majority of the country’s more than 7,500 coronavirus patients. They were linked to Shincheonji Church members in Daegu, a city in the southeast, or people who had come into contact with them.

Now the leaders and members of Tablighi Jamaat are trying to avoid responsibility of spreading coronavirus throughout India, but, their patrons in the Middle East, the Muslim nations and some anti-India forces in the west have already formed a conglomerate with the mission of misleading the world, possibly with the final agenda of isolating India from rest of the world.

Now, let me give some solid evidences about Tablighi Jamaat, proving its direct affiliations with Al Qaeda and other jihadist outfits such as Hamas.

On February 8, 2011, British newspaper the Guardian in a report said, “An Islamic group once described as an “antechamber of fundamentalism” is attempting to extend temporary planning permission on its mosque near the Olympic site in east London.

“The group has been connected to Kafeel Ahmed, one of the Indian suspects arrested for the failed attack on Glasgow airport. He died from his injuries. Two of the 7/7 bombers, Shehzad Tanveer and Mohammed Siddique Khan, are said to have prayed at a Tablighi mosque in Dewsbury, Yorkshire.

“French intelligence officials are widely reported as once describing Tablighi Jamaat as an “antechamber of fundamentalism” while Michael Heimbach, the deputy chief of the FBI’s international terrorism section, was once quoted as saying that al-Qaida used the movement for recruitment purposes”.

The Times in a report dated June 13, 2017 said: “The youngest of the London Bridge attackers was associated with an Islamic group with links to a series of terrorist plots.

“Youssef Zaghba, 22, attended meetings of Tablighi Jamaat while studying in Morocco before moving to London two years ago.

“The group, which has a strong presence in Britain, has been accused by foreign intelligence agencies of becoming a recruitment ground for foreign extremist organisations”.

British newspaper The Telegraph on July 11, 2007 in a report titled ‘The peaceful group linked to radical Muslims’ had also elaborately mentioned Tablighi Jamaat’s militancy connections.

On October 25, 2015, Business Insider had re-published a report from the Telegraph titled ‘Islamic group blocked from building Britain’s biggest mosque in London wrote: “The government has blocked an Islamic group with alleged links to fundamentalism from building Britain’s biggest mosque, putting a final end to a 16-year battle.

“The highly controversial plans by the Tablighi Jamaat sect – accused by some of being a gateway to terror – would have created a so-called “megamosque” with 190-foot minarets and three times the floorspace of St Paul’s Cathedral. The 290,000 square foot mosque, near the Olympic Park in east London, would have accommodated up to 9,300 worshippers in two main gender-segregated prayer halls and a further 2,000 in a separate hall”.

If someone will understand the key goal of Tablighi Jamaat, then it will be easy to realize, there really is very little difference between ideology of TJ or Al Qaeda or ISIS or any other radical Islamic groups around the world. Tablighi’s aspire of an Islamist conquest around the world and bring the whole world under sharia rule or caliphate.

Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is an internationally acclaimed multi-award-winning anti-jihadist journalist, counter-terrorism specialist and editor of Blitz