With six people who attended the Nizamuddin Markaz congregation earlier this month dying due to the coronavirus infection, the Telangana Government has urged people to inform officials about persons who might have attended the gathering.
It also asked the persons that attended the gathering to voluntarily come forward and report to the officials.
“We will conduct tests for them and provide them with free treatment,” the Government has said.
The administration is busy identifying the persons who attended the gathering at Nizamuddin in the second week of March, and are tracing the contacts of persons that they might have interacted with.
With newspaper printing and distribution being disrupted due to the Covid-19 lockdown, the officials took to social media to make these appeals.
“Special teams under the District Collectors are identifying people who could be at risk of contracting novel coronavirus through contact (of the infected persons) and shifting them to the hospitals,” the Telangana Chief Minister’s Office has said in a tweet.
While a 74-year-old man died on Saturday at a private hospital (declared ‘brought dead’), five others succumbed to the virus attack on Monday, taking the total deaths due to Covid-19 to six.
After the congregation, several preachers from Indonesia visited a few places like Karimnagar in Telangana and participated in some meetings.
The government officials are in the process of mapping their movements in order to ascertain the visitors.
Taking on fake news
Seeing some social media handles sharing purported lists of people that might have attended the Delhi gathering, the Government warned the mischief-mongers against spreading misinformation.
In an advisory issued on Monday, the Government said that sharing unverified information, fake news and divulging names of patients would amount to breach of privacy and would attract relevant sections of law.
It said the admins of digital media platforms like WhatsApp would be held responsible if the groups are found to be indulging in sharing of unverified news and misinformation.