At least 145 pilgrims who recently returned from Nanded in Maharashtra tested positive for the coronavirus in Punjab on Thursday, Hindustan Times reported. The state recorded its biggest single-day spike in coronavirus cases after these cases were detected. However, the state government has not released any official statement on this. With this, so far 183 pilgrims have contracted the infection.

The pilgrims from Nanded now account for 33.7% of the total cases in Punjab. The number is likely to rise as the test results of only around 1,200 of 2,500 pilgrims have arrived and the rest are expected by Friday evening.

Akal Takht chief Giani Harpreet Singh expressed concern that the pilgrims were being targeted, according to The Indian Express. “I am afraid that the Sikh pilgrims are being vilified in the same way as were Tablighi Jamaat followers. It seems that the entire community is being targeted,” he claimed.

The Tablighi Jamaat event, held in New Delhi’s Nizamuddin area in early March, later emerged as a coronavirus hotspot.

Around 3,500 pilgrims have arrived in Punjab in the last three days, according to data shared by the officials who attended Chief Minister Amarinder Singh’s video-conference with police.

Officials claimed all Nanded pilgrims who tested positive were asymptomatic when their samples were taken. “The asymptomatic status means that despite the virus, the pilgrims kept on mingling with each other during their stay in Nanded and after their return to Punjab,” an unidentified official dealing with Covid-19 cases in the state said. “It resulted in explosion in the cases.”

Meanwhile, the Nanded administration has said it would conduct tests on all the pilgrims stranded in Maharashtra. “We are left with pilgrims from Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh,” Nanded-Waghala Municipal Corporation Commissioner Sunil Lahane said, adding that almost all pilgrims from Punjab have left.

Punjab has so far reported 19 deaths and 357 cases due to the coronavirus, according to figures from the health ministry.

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