Criminalised By Govt, Cleared By Courts: The Tablighi Story – By Karan Tripathi & Maisah Irfan

Eight months after 11 state governments filed 205 FIRs against 2,765 foreign nationals for allegedly violating visa terms and intentionally disregarding Covid-19 guidelines, not one member of the Tablighi Jamaat, a back-to-roots Islamic movement, has been convicted by any court.

Instead, at least 1,086 members of the Jamaat have been exonerated in some way by eight local and high court judgements, according to our review of media reports of such judgements. The terms the judges used include: a “virtual persecution”; “made scapegoats by a political govt”; “not an iota of evidence”; “abuse of process”; “abuse of power”; “maliciously prosecuted”….

Delhi became the focus of criminal cases related to the Tablighi event, with FIRs lodged against 955 foreign nationals and seven Indians…. “This is a classic case, where unsubstantiated allegations were levelled against the foreign nationals,” one of their lawyers Ashima Mandla told Article 14….

https://www.article-14.com/post/criminalised-by-govt-cleared-by-courts-the-tablighi-story