Over 250 attendees of Tabligh gathering traced in Maharashtra

As many as 252 persons including at least a dozen Indonesians who had attended a congregation of Tabligh-e-Jamaat in New Delhi have been traced in various cities of Maharashtra including Pune and Mumbai, authorities said on Wednesday.

The gathering in Nizamuddin West area of the national capital has emerged as one of the coronavirus hotspots, prompting other states to launch a search for those who attended it and who were possibly exposed to the infection.

As many as 106 people have been traced in five districts of western Maharashtra, a senior official said.

"We received a list of total of 182 people from Pune, Solapur, Satara, Sangli and Kolhapur who had attended the gathering at Markaz Nizamuddin and 106 of them have been traced," said Deepak Mhaisekar, Pune divisional commissioner.

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"Of these 106, 94 people were placed under quarantine and their samples would be tested," he said, adding that the process to track down remaining people was underway.

As per the list, 136 of these people are from Pune, five from Satara, three from Sangli and 17 and 21 from Solapur and Kolhapur, respectively. In Pune district, 70 people have been traced, Mhaisekar said.

Fifty-four persons who had attended the gathering in Nizamuddin were tracked down in Nagpur and put under quarantine, said Municipal Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe.

"I appeal to others who had attended the Tabligh-e- Jamaat congregation to contact us, so that appropriate treatment could be provided if they have coronavirus symptoms," Mundhe said.

Thirty-five persons were identified in Ahmednagar. As many as 29 of them are from Indonesia, Tanzania, South Africa, Ghana and other countries, a local official said.

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One local person and a foreign national from this group have been found to have contracted the infection.

All of them have been placed under quarantine.

In Mumbai, 32 persons including 12 Indonesian nationals who had attended the congregation have been put under quarantine.

Twenty of them -- all Indian nationals, some of them from Rajasthan and Gujarat -- were traced at a mosque in the western suburbs. They were placed under quarantine on the mosque premises after medical examination, said Deputy Commissioner of Police Manjunath Singhe.

The mosque was also sanitized by civic officials.

Also, 12 Indonesian nationals -- six men and six women -- who had attended the Nizamuddin event were traced in suburban Bandra, said DCP Paramjeet Singh Dahiya.

They were placed under home quarantine at the flat they were staying in after medical check-up, he told PTI.

In Mumbra in neighbouring Thane, 25 persons who attended the gathering have been traced, a local official said. None of them were found to have any medical issues, he added.