60 people from Odisha attended Nizamuddin event: Official

Bhubaneswar: Odisha government on Friday said a total of 60 people from the state had attended the religious congregation at Nizamuddin in Delhi last month and one of them has tested positive to COVID-19.

Twenty seven of the Tablighi Jamaat participants, including seven foreign nationals, have returned to Odisha after attending congregation at Nizamuddin, an official said.

“Of the 27 people back in Odisha, 21 have tested negative while a resident of Cuttack was detected as positive to COVID-19,” said the state governments COVID-19 Chief Spokesperson Subroto Bagchi.

He said test reports of five others are awaited. Apart from the 27 persons (including 7 foreigners) who have come to Odisha after attending the event in Nizamuddin, 40 others from the state had also attended the congregation.

“They are quarantined in different states like Delhi, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh,” Bagchi said. The people who have returned to the state and their family members have been put in government quarantine and under close observation.

The seven foreign nationals who have come to the state after attending the Nizamuddin event in Delhi, comprise six from Sudan and one man from Djibouti.

The state government has also launched a massive contact tracing exercise of the people who attended a similar religious congregation at Talcher in the state. “The samples from some people in Talcher were collected and sent for COVID test,” Bagchi said.

He said that a group of 10 people from neighbouring West Bengal had recently visited Talcher in Odisha’s Angul district. Some local people of Talcher had participated in the event attended by the 10 people, Bagchi said.

(PTI)