The Ministry of Home Affairs has asked all states and Union Territories to track down and conduct COVID-19 screenings of Rohingya refugees amid concerns that many may have attended last month’s Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi’s Nizamuddin, officials said on Friday, April 17.

According to the letter sent by the Home Ministry to state police chiefs and chief secretaries, Rohingya Muslims reportedly attended Ijtemas and other religious congregations of Tabligh Jamaat, leading to a possibility of the community members contracting COVID-19.

The Ministry said that Rohingyas residing in camps in Hyderabad and other parts of Telangana had attended the Tablighi Jamaat Ijtema at Haryana’s Mewat. It also called for special attention for identification of Rohingya refugees in camps in Hyderabad, Telangana, Delhi, Punjab, Jammu and Mewat.

‘Rohingyas residing in camps of Hyderabad, Telangana had attended Ijtema at Mewat and then had visited Markaz in Nizamuddin. Also, Rohingyas living in Shram Vihar, Shaheen Bagh had also gone for Tabligh activities. They have not returned to their camps,’ the letter said, according to an NDTV report.

Around 9,000 people had participated in the Tablighi Jamaat conference last month in Delhi’s Nizamuddin. After the event, many of the attendees travelled to various parts of the country. Reportedly, a third of the nearly 3,000 coronavirus cases reported during that time were either people who attended the Tablighi gathering or those who came in contact with them.

The central and state governments conducted massive contact tracing operations to contain the spread of the deadly virus. More than 25,500 Tablighi members and their contacts have been quarantined.

According to the government, there are nearly 40,000 Rohingyas in camps across the country. Over the years, they entered into India through Bangladesh, after fleeing violence and persecution in Myanmar.

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