Noida police accuse ANI of ‘fake news’ for adding Tablighi Jamaat angle to Covid-19 quarantine exercise

On April 8, ANI reported that persons in Noida’s Sector 5 who supposedly came in contact with members of the Tablighi Jamaat have been quarantined.

It attributed this information to Sankal Sharma, the deputy commissioner of police in Uttar Pradesh’s Gautam Budh Nagar district.

The official handle of DCP Sharma responded to the tweet and refuted the Tablighi Jamaat angle. It accused ANI of "misquoting" and "spreading fake news".

ANI UP deleted the tweet and issued a correction.

On April 8, The Hindu also reported on those quarantined in Noida. It claimed that 200 people were quarantined because of a JJ Colony cluster case. “District officials said they lived close to JJ Colony cluster where three people were tested positive on April 4. Dispelling rumours, district magistrate Suhas L.Y. described it as a cluster containment exercise,” the report noted.

At least three claims of "misbehaviour" by Tablighi Jamaat members have been debunked so far. Two of these were media reports (see here and here), and one was an allegation by a Bharatiya Janata Party MP.

On April 8, The Economic Times reported that an investigation into a complaint against six Jamaat members for allegedly harassing four nurses at a hospital in Ghaziabad has been delayed. This is because one of the accused has been shifted into an isolation ward, and the rest have been quarantined.

The report quoted a police official’s comment on the matter: “The official, however, said since the alleged incident took place in the main hall, there were no CCTV recording of the same. There were no independent witnesses of the incident either as the only people present there were the nurses and two hospital staff.”