The Delhi Minorities Commission on Thursday urged the Capital’s health department not to mention the Nizamuddin Markaz – the mosque where the Tablighi Jamaat congregation took place last month – in its daily bulletins on the coronavirus, saying that such classification is promoting bias against Muslim citizens, PTI reported.

“Such thoughtless classification is feeding into the Islamophobia agenda of the media and Hindutva forces and has been easily turned into a handle to attack Muslims across the country,” Delhi Minorities Commission Chairperson Zafarul Islam Khan wrote in his letter to the secretary of Delhi’s health department, according to the news agency. Khan alleged that Muslims are being attacked in various areas and there have been calls to boycott the community

In the daily health bulletin released by the Delhi government, there is a separate column for Covid-19 cases linked to the Tablighi Jamaat event. According to the government’s bulletin from Thursday, there were 720 cases of coronavirus in Delhi.

Late in March, officials had discovered that a religious gathering by the Tablighi Jamaat was held in Nizamuddin area of the Capital. The Centre had said that nearly 2,100 foreign visitors came to India for activities of the Tablighi Jamaat since January 1, adding that all of them first reported at the groups’ headquarters in Nizamuddin, which became a coronavirus hotspot.


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On Wednesday, the Delhi government had sealed off 20 coronavirus hotspots in an effort to contain Covid-19 infections. Wearing masks has also been made mandatory in the Capital.

The health ministry had also appealed to people to not single out particular communities or areas while talking about the spread of Covid-19 in the country. “Certain communities and areas are being labeled purely based on false reports floating in social media and elsewhere,” the ministry had said in an advisory. The health ministry had also urged citizens to not reveal the names or identity of patients or people who have been placed under quarantine.

The number of coronavirus cases in India rose to 6,412, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s figures on Friday morning showed. Out of the total cases in the country, 199 patients have died, and 5,709 are being treated.