Petition in High Court for release of 3,300 Tablighi Jamaat members

A plea has been filed in the Delhi High Court seeking release of nearly 3,300 members of Tablighi Jamaat who have been sent to various quarantine centres for around 40 days and not released despite reporting negative for COVID-19. The petition, which is likely to come up for hearing on Friday, sought direction to the authorities to comply with the guideline of 14-day quarantine and to constitute a high level committee to enquire as to whether continuous confinement of the members is violative of the provisions of the Constitution.

Petitioner Sabiha Quadri, a social worker, alleged that many people have been illegally lodged in quarantine centres and submitted that several persons who are staying in those centres have written letters to the authorities but they have not been considered. The plea, filed through advocate Shahid Ali, claimed that the authorities have failed and neglected in discharging their duties and the continuous detention in the name of quarantine is not justified and violative of guidelines of the central government. After being exposed to a large gathering on March 31 amid the COVID-19 or coronavirus lockdown many members of Tablighi Jamaat from Markaz Hazrat Nizamuddin were taken out by the authorities and lodged in different quarantine centres in Delhi. Some of them were sent to the centres a few days later after being detained from various mosques.

“A total of 3,288 people from Tablighi Jamaat have been put under different quarantine centres and till date none has been released from there, despite the fact that they are not in any manner infected with the disease (coronavirus) and in case of many members, three consecutive reports with negative endorsement have come,” the plea said. It also sought to constitute a committee to investigate the death of two members of the organisation who died in the quarantine centre and to lodge FIR against the officials.

On May 6, the Delhi government had said the Tablighi Jamaat members who have completed mandatory quarantine and show no coronavirus symptoms can go home. In April, COVID-19 cases in Delhi spiked after hundreds of many Tablighi Jamaat members, who had attended a large congregation in Nizamuddin, tested positive. The other members were directly taken to quarantine centres to contain the spread of COVID-19.