Haryana villagers refuse to let officials quarantine 20 Jamaat followers

Faridabad, April 3 (IANS) Amid a spike in coronavirus positive cases in India after the evacuation of hundreds of people from Tablighi Jamaat headquarters in Delhi, residents of a Haryana village forced authorities to not quarantine 20 Jamaat followers from abroad at a nearby college premises, police sources said on Friday.

Sources in the Bhopani police station in Faridabad district said that Haryana Health Department officials had taken these 20 Tablighi followers to Nachauli village to be quarantined for a few days in a nearby college premises around 10 pm on Thursday.

“However, when the villagers came to know about their arrival, they gheraoed the college premises in their hundreds and protested. They maintained that they could spread coronavirus among the villagers,” a police official said.

The agitated villagers refused to listen to health officials as well as Bhopani police that reached there to handle the situation.

After the drama went on for three-four hours, the officials decided to shift the 20 Jamaat followers to a temporary quarantine centre set up in an engineering college in Dhaunj village.

Efforts to contact Faridabad Police Commissioner KK Rao for comments did not succeed.

(Sanjiv Chauhan can be contacted at sanjiv.c@ians.in)

–IANS

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