148 people who attended Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi quarantined in Assam

At least 148 people who attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi's Nizamuddin last month have been quarantined in different districts of Assam, even as the number of coronavirus cases in the state has risen to 16.

All 16 COVID-19 positive cases had attended the religious congregation in Delhi, Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Thursday.

He said the exercise of tracing the contacts of those who tested positive for the disease is going on.

Nine of the 56 persons from Hailakandi district in south Assam, who returned from Nizamuddin, have been put under home quarantine, police officials said.

In Kamrup district of lower Assam, 37 people attending the Jamaat congregation were shifted to Sarusajai Stadium quarantine camp in neighbouring Guwahati, while another 10 persons were quarantined in ingimari Model Hospital, said Joint Director Health Dr N S Tishya.

Three of them have tested negative, Tishya said.

In adjacent Barpeta district, the eight persons who had come from Nizamuddin and kept in isolation in FAA Medical College and Hospital were found negative for COVID-19.

In another lower Assam district of Nalbari, three of the 11-member Jamaat team who have come from Shambli district in Uttar Pradesh after attending the congregation in Nizamuddin and took shelter at Mollapara in the district tested negative for the virus, Deputy Commissioner Bharat Bhusan Dev Choudhury said.

One member of the team, a 19-year-old man, tested positive for the disease on Wednesday, Sarma said.

The man was shifted to Gauhati Medical College and Hospital on Wednesday night for COVID-19 treatment, Choudhary said, adding the results of other seven members of the team are awaited