Bengaluru: The Delhi Police has filed charge sheets against 82 foreigners for attending a religious congregation at Nizamuddin Markaz here in violation of visa conditions and indulging in missionary activities amidst the COVID-19 outbreak in the country.
The police has filed 20 charge sheets against the foreigners belonging to 20 countries.
A large congregation organised in March by the Tablighi Jamaat in the Nizamuddin area of the national capital had emerged as a major hotspot of coronavirus.
Some of the participants, who were later tested positive for coronavirus, had travelled to their home states and other areas.
More than 25,500 Tablighi members and their contacts have been quarantined in the country after the Centre and the state governments conducted a "mega operation" to identify them.
“They not only violated government guidelines issued in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic and regulations regarding the Epidemic Diseases Act, but also flouted the Disaster Management Act and subsequently the prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure,” the police said.
An FIR was registered against Tablighi Jamaat leader Maulana Saad Kandhalvi and six others on March 31 at the Crime Branch Police Station on a complaint of the Station House Officer of Nizamuddin under sections of the Epidemic Diseases Act, Disaster Management Act, 2005, Foreigners Act and other relevant sections of Indian Penal Code.
Kandhalvi was later booked for culpable homicide not amounting to murder after some of the attendees of the religious congregation died due to coronavirus, police said.
The case is being investigated by the Crime Branch which pertains to the religious gathering at the Markaz which congregated at Banglewali Masjid in Hazrat Nizamuddin, on March 13 and beyond.
