An exercise to verify if Rohingyas residing in different parts of Telangana had attended any religious meetings outside the State had begun, following a letter from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.
The letter stated that ‘Rohingya Muslims’ may need to be screened for COVID-19 following reports that some of them from Telangana, Delhi, Punjab and Jammu attended the Tablighi Jamaat event at Nizamuddin in Delhi last month.
Police officers monitoring the situation in Telangana said that close to 45 Rohingyas from the State had attended the TJ event. Of them, 22 had returned to the State. “Four of them tested positive and are being treated at a government hospital,” a top police official, unwilling to be named, said. One of them was discharged after testing negative during subsequent tests.
Inquiries about the remaining Rohingyas indicated that some of them were in Mewat of Haryana and a few in Punjab. “There are reports that some of them had gone to Jammu or Kashmir from Delhi. This is being verified,” the officer said.
Police here were informed that the remaining Rohingyas could not return due to the lockdown. Already, Nalgonda police registered cases against 17 Rohingyas, of whom five were from Mewat, two from Kashmir and the rest from Balapur area near Chandrayangutta. One of them had attended the TJ meeting, police said. Five of them tested positive. This included two from Mewat and three from Balapur. All of them were sent to a government hospital in Hyderabad and others were quarantined in a government building in Nalgonda outskirts.
