Updated: December 20, 2020 7:54:34 am
Members of Tablighi were booked for allegedly disobeying Covid regulations. Archive
On the surface, the Tablighi Jamaat members appear content, eager to go home and meet their loved ones. But a mild pinprick generates the anguish of spending nearly a year in a foreign land, while facing public defamation, accusations of spreading a pandemic and a lengthy court trial, before finally being exonerated.
“My mother suffered two strokes while I was trapped in India. My father and wife had to take care of her, ”says Jahedul Islam, 32, from Bangladesh. When he contacted the Bangladeshi embassy, he says, they told him that his questions about his status were being blocked. “I have a feeling that the government of Bangladesh is upset about the way they have treated us.”
However, Islam hastily adds, does not complain. “Eta kintu abhijog na, apnake khali situation ta bolchilam (I’m not complaining, I’m just narrating the situation to you) … But I’m happy that the truth has prevailed,” says Islam, who runs a steel workshop in the district of Munshiganj.
On December 15, a Delhi court acquitted the last of Tablighi Jamaat’s 36 foreign nationals, including Islam, accused of violating Covid guidelines while attending a meeting in the capital in March. Of the 952 foreigners accused, 44 had chosen to stand trial rather than accept a court settlement, and eight had been acquitted earlier.
Upon acquitting the 36, Metropolitan Chief Magistrate Arun Kumar Garg detained the police and said that “the prosecution has not even been able to prove disobedience to any of the instructions” issued by the authorities.
Islam, a father of three, arrived in India on January 20. He was at Tablighi Markaz in Delhi for a congregation until March 5, before moving to Mewat, the founding place of the Islamic spiritual movement. He was detained and kept in two different quarantine centers run by the Delhi government for more than two months.
“In the Narela temporary detention center, they locked us up from the outside, while they provided us with what we needed, such as food, medicine. In another place they kept us in rooms that turned into ovens during the summer, but at least we could move, ”he recalls.
While the Delhi government ordered the release of the Indian members of Tablighi from quarantine centers on May 9, it ordered the foreigners to be taken into police custody. On May 28, the Delhi High Court released them, allowing them to be transferred to alternative accommodation.
Irfan, 39, an Australian citizen, was picked up along with his wife from a friend’s house in the Batla House area, where they had been staying since March 22. They were at the Markaz for a couple of hours. The couple’s three-year-old son has been home to Brisbane all this time.
Irfan, a mechanical engineer who left India in 2004, says: “My wife and I registered our names when entering the Markaz building, and I think that’s where the police got our names and contacts from. We had come to visit Delhi and Markaz was part of our itinerary. But we didn’t spend a night there. “
Irfan and his wife were detained for 62 days before obtaining bail. “The government school where we were kept was dirty and we cleaned it ourselves. I couldn’t even understand what was happening to me, ”he says. They told their son, who studies in class 3, that they were stuck due to the lockdown. “How else do you convince a child?” Irfan says.
A business development manager with a firm in Brisbane, he is concerned about retaining his job given his long absence.
Afuaan, 52, owner of an Indonesian Sumatra-based advertising company that designs outdoor campaigns, says that while the court’s verdict has left him “largely happy,” a part of his heart has always I would be sad to leave India, “a land where I learned everything about life.” Afuaan fears that he will not be able to return, as the Center has blacklisted his visa along with that of the other 959 people.
“My wife and my staff tried to keep the business afloat. But we have suffered enormous losses … But you see, they teach us not to complain or get bitter, “he adds, smiling.
Abdullah Ramadhan, 23, is from a village near Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, where he teaches Islamic scriptures and helps the family in agriculture. Explaining why he chose to fight rather than accept a deal with the prosecution, Ramadhan says: “It’s simple. We firmly believed that the charges against us were wrong and unfair. “
Top defender Fuzail Ahmad Ayyubi, who led the legal defense of the Tablighis, says the court’s verdict “reflects the capacity, independence and competence of the lower Indian judiciary,” and is not concerned about the police appealing against the order. “I hope the verdict will have a good impact around the world, as the case involved citizens from so many countries.”
On Friday, the petitioners told the Supreme Court that since they had posted bail for six months (10,000 rupees each), they should be allowed to leave. The hearing was held on a petition submitted by them in June in which they claimed the denial of rights and challenged their inclusion on the blacklist.
“We told the Supreme Court that 36 Indian citizens would have a guarantee that foreigners would return if the law requires it. The Tribunal asked us to approach a nodal officer (from the Delhi Police) and the Attorney General to obtain their passports and facilitate their return. The surveillance circulars against them must also be revoked and they need exit visas as their normal visas have been canceled, ”said an official from Tablighi Jamaat.
The complex web of legal complexities means that Islam still has no answer when his five-year-old son asks him on the phone that one question: “Abbu tumi kobe ashba (Father, when will you return)?”
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