Sealed Sukkur mosque turned into temporary quarantine centre

The mosque was sealed on Friday afternoon after a 19-year-old Chinese man tested positive for the virus.

HYDERABAD: A mosque and seminary in Sukkur, which were sealed to enable the screening of suspected coronavirus carriers, have been turned into a temporary quarantine centre.

On Sunday, a day after locking dozens of people inside the mosque due to fears of a coronavirus outbreak after it surfaced that over a number of foreigners were staying there, authorities shifted around 200 more people belonging to Tableeghi groups to the Yousuf Mosque. The total number of people inside has reached over 340.

Meanwhile, Sukkur SSP Irfan Samo said that another 44 members of different preaching groups from various districts in Sukkur and Larkana were also shifted to the mosque. At least 68 of those quarantined at the mosque are foreign nationals, hailing from Indonesia, Tunisia, Nigeria, Afghanistan and other countries.

According to police and health officials, those quarantined at the mosque would remain there for 14 days. “The samples of persons suspected of having coronavirus are being collected for testing,” a health official told The Express Tribune.

Offering resistance

In Hyderabad, where over 200 people were similarly isolated at Noor Mosque in Wahdat Colony, Qasimabad, a team of doctors arriving to screen those inside faced resistance.

Brandishing batons, men came out from the mosque into the compound and stopped the doctors from entering the premises.

The mosque was sealed on Friday afternoon after a 19-year-old Chinese man, part of a Tableeghi Jamaat delegation staying there, tested positive for the virus.

Haji Muhammad Anees, a member of the mosque Shura, told The Express Tribune that the mosque’s volunteers resisted when the local administration tried to bring around a dozen people from other Tableeghi groups inside. “Some of them appeared symptomatic, so we asked the health team to conduct their tests outside,” he said, insisting that the baton-wielding men performed as guards at the mosque and had not gathered to attack the health officials.

Anees said they pointed out to the authorities that they had been told nobody could leave or enter the mosque. “They were violating their own orders,” he claimed.

Later, the police and Rangers were called in, after which the doctors took nasal swabs from over 200 people confined to the premises, who lined up for the procedure through the day.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 30^th, 2020.