8 foreigners who attended Tablighi event quarantined, their passports impounded

Eight foreign nationals from Iran, Afghanistan and the UK have been quarantined at a hospital here and their passports confiscated as they had attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation organised in Delhi amid the coronavirus outbreak, police said on Thursday. They said the eight persons had been staying at a local mosque here since their arrival in the city.

"We were tipped off that some foreign nationals who had attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation were staying at a mosque in Babupurwa after which they were caught," Police Outpost incharge Abdul Kalam said. There was information that they reached Kanpur via Rajasthan on March 21 and since then they had been moving around in the city and had not informed the police about their stay, the officer said. All of them have been quarantined at Lala Lajpat Rai (LLR) hospital and their passports have been confiscated, DIG (Kanpur) Anant Deo Tiwari said.

All eight foreigners were charged relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Foreigners Act, police said. Those held have been identified as Ibrahim Fauladi, Abdul Raheem, Younus, all residents of Iran, Mahmood Shah Husaini, Shabbir Abdul Raheem, Zareen Mohammad and Rahmatullah, all residents of Afghanistan, and UK national Dawood Ayyub Ismail.