6 Nepalese Muslims among 8 booked for defying lockdown

Six Nepalese nationals who are Tablighi Jamaat members were on Friday booked for allegedly staying at a mosque for religious purposes in violation of the lockdown orders, police said.

The imam (cleric) and the manager of the mosque too were booked, they said.

An FIR was registered against them under Section 144 of the CrPC, Section 3 of the Epidemic Disease Act 1897 and under the IPC for staying at the mosque as a gathering of more than four people at a place is prohibited in the wake of the lockdown, Senior Superintendent of Police Kalanidhi Naithani said.

The Nepalese citizens had arrived for Tablighi activities in the mosque in Pasonda village located under the Teela mode police station area, he said.

They were sent to a temporary isolation ward created in an engineering college in Masuri town on Wednesday after medical check up by a health department team, Naithani said.

Every year, over a hundred Muslims arrive at the mosque for Tablighi purposes.