Revisiting the judicial response to foreign Tablighi Jamaat members case in light of the COVID pandemic

Muslim clerics and preachers did not come infected from their home nations to spread COVID here. They were made scapegoats to hide the mismanagement of the Indian Union government. This politicisation and communalisation of the event was noticed by some courts and put on record.

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IT has been three years since the sudden arrest and jailing of thousands of members of the Tablighi Jamaat (TJ), a global Sunni Islamic missionary organisation, by police across states over the allegations of them being responsible for the spread of COVID.

While those TJ members who had come from aboard left India after acquittal from the courts, the wounds of the Indian TJ members are yet to heal, as they are still facing trial. Additionally, the keys to the Nizamuddin Markaz, the mosque which is the birthplace and global centre of the TJ, were handed over to the organisation for complete reopening by the police only in December last year after the Delhi High Court's intervention.

Initially, the markaz was opened through an interim order of the Delhi High Court on April 1 last year to offer namaz during Ramzan under strict surveillance through CCTV cameras; this was eventually extended till October 2022. This reopening was, however, opposed by the Union government.