Tablighi Jamaat case: 36 foreign nationals released, court rebuked Delhi Police

A Delhi court has released 36 foreign nationals arrested in March this year on charges of attending the Ijtama (religious conference) of Tablighi Jamaat in Nizamuddin, Delhi.

The court said that the prosecution failed to prove that the accused were present in Markaz, the headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat. He was accused of violating the guidelines of Corona for joining the Ijtama of Tablighi Jamaat. The police claimed that these people violated the guidelines of Corona and due to this they later spread Corona in 14 states.

Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Arun Kumar Garg, while deciding in the court, reprimanded the SHO of Hazrat Nizamuddin police station and the Investigating Officer of the case and said that he had made a mistake in identifying the accused.

The accused had told the court that at that time (in March when Iqtzma was present in Markaz), they were not present in Nizamuddin Markaz and the police had arrested them from different places. He also alleged that the police had arrested him on the instructions of the Union Home Ministry for trapping him under a conspiracy.

The court accepted his argument.

The court said, "It is beyond my understanding that IO Inspector Satish Kumar did 952 foreign nationals out of a total of 2343 people who had violated the Corona Guidelines, according to the SHO, without conducting an identification parade (TIP)."

The court also said that SHO Mukesh Walia knew how many people had gathered in Markaz from the beginning, yet in time he did not take any action so that they could be removed from there.

The Delhi Police had accused 952 foreign nationals for violating visa rules and Corona guidelines. More than nine hundred people confessed their crime because they did not want to fight the case while staying in India. But 44 foreign nationals had decided to stay in India and fight the charges against them. Eight of them were acquitted by the court in August as no evidence was found against them. The remaining 36 foreign nationals were acquitted by the Delhi court on Tuesday.