The latest to enrage over the irresponsible and appalling actions of the Tablighi Jamaat members is Shiva Sena. The political party has criticized the Nizamuddin congregation for holding a gathering at a time when India was gearing up for a potential threat of COVID-19 community transmission.
Shiv Sena called the congregation, which has become the single cause for the sudden surge in the number of cases in the country, an "inhuman" act and added that no religious or national purpose was solved by holding of such an event, said news agency PTI.
The actions of the Tablighi Jamaat members are no less than despicable. They have resorted to stone-pelting doctors and spitting in hospital wards and on health authorities. Displaying their illiterate backgrounds with pride, the members also took off their pants and made vulgar gestures towards female nurses. All in all, the "religious" group proved they are the farthest from godliness.
“What religious and national service have these people done by such a congregation in the name of Islam. In fact, it is inhuman and great disservice,” an excerpt quoted by the agency from editorial in party mouthpiece Saamana said.
The party which rules Maharasthra in coalition with the Congress and NCP also acknowledged the two conflicting accounts of the violation by Jamaat members.
“What is truth only these two will know. But just like the police cleared the Shaheen Bagh protest area after the Delhi assembly polls, this event also could have been stopped using force,” the editorial said.
“This was a matter of national health and not religion. The Muslim community, too, would have supported such a move. Violating the lockdown is playing with other people’s lives,” the Saamna editorial quoted by PTI added.
“The programme saw congregation of over 5,000 people from 22 states in the country and eight foreign countries. Out of the 5,000 participants, 2,000 were foreigners, it said.
The leader of the Jamaat, Maulana Mohammad Saad, has been booked under sections that punish offences that could lead to the worsening of an epidemic and for criminal conspiracy.