markaz opinion

Some Muslim intellectuals, rather opportunists more appropriately, have rushed in with greater
vigor than established Islamophobes to condemn the Tableegh Jamat's conduct during the ongoing
national lockdown to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
To them I submit the following:
1. March 13, 2020 - Ministry of Health says "Coronavirus is not a health emergency.
2. March 13, 2020 - 3000+ Muslims congregate at the Nizamuddin, Jamaat Headquarters, marking
the beginning of a religious conference.
3. March 15, 2020 - The religious conference at the Jamaat Headquarters concludes.
4. March 16, 2020 - Hindu Mahasabha holds a public Gaumutra Party in Delhi and other places in
India to fight the coronavirus pandemic.
5. March 16, 2020 - Delhi Government orders closure of all religious places in Delhi.
6. March 17, 2020 - Thousands of devotees reported at Tirupati.
7. March 18, 2020 - Media reports about 40,000 devotees still at Tirupati.
8. March 19, 2020 - PM Modi announces Janta Curfew on March 22, calls for public display of
applause and felicitation of health workers and others in the frontline battling the coronavirus
pandemic. Tirupati closed. PM gives three days notice for one-day curfew.
9. March 22, 2020 - Janta curfew observed and flagrantly violated later in the day. People throng
streets in hundreds of thousands across the country applauding the health workers as per the
request and desire of the PM.
Nizamuddin Management cancels all programs, completely restricts all movements.
Delhi CM Kejriwal announces the complete lockdown of Delhi effective 6 AM March 23, 2020,
leaving delegates stranded inside the Nizamuddin Headquarters.

10. March 23, 2020 - BJP government in Madhya Pradesh sworn in. Massive street celebrations
organized and reported.
11. March 24, 2020 - PM Modi announces countrywide lockdown, gives four hours notice to shut
down an entire country of 135 crore people
12. March 25, 2020 - Yogi Adityanath participates in massive ceremony in a pre-dawn puja at the
Ram Janmabhoomi premises to shift the idol of Ram Lalla to a temporary structure to give way to
the commencement of the sacred temple.
13. March 30, 2020 - News emerges that 6 pilgrims who had been to the Tableeghi Jamaat
Conference between March 13 - March 15 have died.
14. March 30, 2020 - Kejriwal orders FIR against Nizamuddin Management. Nizamuddin Basti
cordoned off.
15. March 31, 2020 - BJP IT cell, mainstream media, some left-liberals, progressive Muslim
intellectuals, opportunists on both sides of the aisle start bashing Islam, its adherents, jamaat,
Nizamuddin, et al.
16. March 31, 2020 - Sania Ahmad very rightly writes, India is the only place in this world where the
coronavirus pandemic has also been assigned different faiths from time to time. Somewhere it is
Hindu, other places it is Muslim, somewhere else it is a Sikh and so on and so forth.
Meanwhile the poor, the daily wage earners, left stranded between life, death and livelihood,
continue to endlessly march to their villages and intermittently die, somewhere sprayed upon with
industry grade pesticides, somewhere beaten by the brutal police, somewhere punished under the
gaze and heat of a punishing sun.
#Nizamuddin #Corona #HinduMuslim #Lockdown
Sufiyan Sadiq