342 from K'taka attended Tabligh event;nearly 150 to be traced

The Karnataka government was on tenterhooks on Wednesday, mounting efforts to track nearly 150 people who are among the more than 340 from the state who attended the religious congregation of Tablighi Jamaat in Delhi while the others have been identified and quarantined.

According to the government, it had information as of now that 342 people from the state had attended the event last month in Nizamuddin in Delhi, which has turned out to be the hotbed of COVID-19 spread in the country, and 200 of them have been quarantined.

"Efforts are on to trace out people who attended from the state and their contacts, it is a huge task...we are at it," Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai said, adding he has also appealed for help from the community leaders in this mission.

 

Besides, as many as 62 foreign nationals who attended the event have also returned to Karnataka and 50 of them had been quarantined while 12 others had left for their nations earlier, he said.

Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa appealed to those who attended the congregation to voluntarily report to the authorities and take medical treatment.

Health Minister B Sriramulu in a tweet said that out of 342 people from Karnataka who attended the congregation 200 people, including four from Bengaluru and five from Belagavi, have been quarantined, and efforts we on to quickly identify others.

In a series of tweets, Sriramulu said 12 of those quarantined have tested negative for COVID-19.

Bommai said: "These numbers may go up as things are volatile and we are still getting update (on the number of people from the state who attended the Delhi event)."

He said around 62 people from Malaysia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan and other countries who attended the congregation had come to Karnataka. Twelve of them have gone back and the remaining 50 have been quarantined here.

The government intensified the search after it emerged that several attendees of the religion event have been affected by COVID-19 and six people had died in Telangana, while one each in Andaman and Nicobar and Karnataka.

A 60-year old man who died last week in Sira in Tamukuru district had participated in the Delhi meet and tested positive for the infection.