New Delhi, June 4, 2020: India’s Home Ministry on June 4 blacklisted 2,550 foreign members of an Islamic organization for violating visa rules.
The ministry officials accused Tablighi Jamaat members from nearly 40 countries of staying in India during the nationwide coronavirus lockdown and indulging in missionary activities.
The ministry has also banned them from entering India for the next ten years.
The ministry’s action came after various state governments provided details of the foreigners who were found illegally living in mosques and religious seminaries across the country.
Almost all of them had come to India on tourist visa but were engaged in missionary works, thus violating the visa conditions, the official said.
The ministry’s action was first taken after more than 2,300 people, including 250 foreigners, belonging to the Islamic organization were found living at its headquarters in Delhi’s Nizamuddin soon after the nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24. Several of them had tested positive for coronavirus.
The Tablighi Jamaat members were blamed for the spread of coronavirus in more than 20 states and Union Territories with more than a thousand COVID-19 positive cases and over two dozen deaths traced to them.
The blacklisted members came from the US, the UK, France, Australia, Russia, China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Kyrgyzstan, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gambia, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, the Philippines, Qatar, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Sweden, Tanzania, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia and Ukraine.
The government has already decided not to issue tourist visa to any foreigner who wishes to visit India and take part in Tablighi activities.
Source: outlookindia.com