About a year ago, around 3,500 foreigners came to India to participate in Tablighi Jamaat's programme in Nizamuddin, a mosque located in south Delhi. On March 24, 2020, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi suddenly announced the nationwide lockdown, the men, women and children joining the Tablighi Jamaat were distraught, as they had only four hours to prepare for this grave situation.

When the lockdown was announced, the Jamaat people joined the small local mosques located in different places in the country, and the police of every state treated them differently. In Delhi, around 960 foreign nationals were held at quarantine centres for many months. In Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and other states, they were sent straight to jail.

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