Hunt on for Markaz chief Maulana Saad, Crime Branch team arrives at his farmhouse in Shamli

NEW DELHI: Delhi Police Crime Branch, which has been trying to locate Nizamuddin Markaz chief Maulana Saad, whose outfit Tablighi Jamaat is being blamed for rising coronavirus cases in India, has arrived at his farmhouse in the Shamli district in Uttar Pradesh.

Zee Media sources said on Thursday that the Crime Branch team is waiting outside Saad’s farmhouse in Kandhla in the Shamli district and will begin the search for the Markaz chief in a short while. Meanwhile, the Crime Branch has also launched a probe into the ‘secret’ bank accounts of Maulana Saad and several other Tablighi Jamaat members to find the source of money and its utilisation. 

Delhi Police wants to question Maulana Saad Kandhalvi in connection with the FIR lodged against him and his outfit for violating a Centre’s ban on big gatherings while coronavirus lockdown is in force.

The Crime Branch had earlier grilled three sons of Tablighi Jamaat chief, who had so far evaded arrest and put himself in home-quarantine. The Delhi Police had earlier issued notices to the Jamaat chief in connection with the gathering organised in Delhi.

At least 17 people, including Saad, have been charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder for holding a gathering last month that authorities say led to a big jump in coronavirus infections.

A congregation at Markaz in the Nizamuddin area of Delhi of Tablighi Jamaat became an epicentre of coronavirus spread, with several who attended the event testing positive and infecting hundreds of others across the country.

The headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat group in a cramped corner of Delhi was sealed and thousands of followers, including some from Indonesia, Malaysia and Bangladesh, were taken into quarantine after it emerged that they had attended meetings there in mid-March.

Police initially filed a case against Muhammad Saad Kandhalvi, the chief of the centre, for violating a ban on big gatherings but later invoked the law against culpable homicide.

The Tablighi is one of the world`s biggest Sunni Muslim proselytising organisations with followers in more than 80 countries, promoting a pure form of Islam. The Tablighi administrators earlier said many of the followers who had visited its offices in Delhi`s historic Nizamuddin quarter were stranded after the government declared a three-week lockdown, and the centre had to offer them shelter.

The Tablighi was also linked to a surge of cases in neighbouring Pakistan where it cancelled a similar gathering, but only at the last minute when thousands had already arrived at premises in the city of Lahore.