Meanwhile, “the embassy and consulate-general in India are trying their best to assist with basic needs,” he said.

But with Indonesia continuing to see increasing infections and Malaysia having slowed the rate of new cases with its six-week lockdown, analysts fear the Tablighi Jamaat returnees may spark a new wave of coronavirus infections.

Thousands of India’s 34,863 cases have been linked to the New Delhi gathering, while an ijtema in Kuala Lumpur that drew some 16,000 participants from across Asia between February 27 and March 1 resulted in Malaysia’s biggest Covid-19 cluster of 2,179 infections.

Muhammad Habib Abiyan Dzakwan, a researcher at the Jakarta-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies’ (CSIS) disaster management research unit said he agreed with the approach, pointing to how the first batch of Indonesians evacuated from the Chinese city of Wuhan in February were not tested.

“We should always be vigilant. Learning from the case of Tablighi Jamaat in Gowa last month, there are many of them who were eventually diagnosed with Covid-19. In Lombok, we saw a dramatic increase [in cases] due to this cluster.”

“As long as the authorities maintain the current standard of screening and quarantining on those who return, the risk posed from this front could be kept to the minimum,” he said.

How the coronavirus spread at Malaysia’s Tabligh Jamaat gathering

In India, the Tablighi Jamaat group has been criticised for going ahead with its gathering from March 13 to 15 but authorities have also been blamed for allowing in the foreign attendees, who first visited New Delhi before travelling to other parts of India. The country now has 1,154 deaths – the highest number of fatalities in Asia outside of China.

New Delhi police have brought charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder against Muhammad Saad Kandhalvi, who heads Tablighi Jamaat’s New Delhi centre. The group’s headquarters in a cramped corner of the Indian capital were sealed off and since then there have been reports of xenophobic acts and comments made against members of India’s 201-million strong Muslim community.

In India, Tablighi Jamaat says it is being targeted for coronavirus spread

Delhi Minorities Commission chairman Zafarul Islam Khan stressed that Tablighi Jamaat members were “wrong and insensitive” to organise a mass event amid calls for social distancing but to blame all Muslims for spreading the infection was “vindictive”.

Faran Jeffery, deputy director of the UK-based Islamic Theology of Counterterrorism organisation, said “the main reason” the group’s members went ahead with the mass event was because leaders told them that “since they are doing Allah’s work by doing dawah (proselytisation) and calling people towards Islam, that would make them immune to the virus as Allah will be protecting his servants”.

“Tablighi Jamaat members strictly adhere to their leaders’ calls and commands. As the entire concept of the movement is based on dawah, so blindly following the commands of their leaders is natural for them,” he said.

Faran said he believes the movement initially did not take the threat of the pandemic seriously until their members started testing positive in large numbers.

It is estimated to have anywhere between 12 million and 80 million adherents worldwide, with the majority living in South Asia.

The group holds annual gatherings, or ijtema, in each of the countries that it has members. A typical ijtema lasts for three days and ends with an exceptionally long prayer. These gatherings are considered moments of intense blessing by Tablighi Jamaat members and are known to attract in excess of two million followers in some countries.

Faran said the group now realised there was a “massive backlash” against them and would not attempt to organise large gatherings anytime soon, as they were concerned that being associated with the spread of the virus would damage their reputation.

I attended tabligh mass prayer in Malaysia, now I’m in hospital

According to Faran, Tablighi Jamaat describes itself as non-political and does not impose any fiqh (jurisprudence) rules, focusing instead on the Koran and Hadith, the reported sayings of Prophet Muhammad.

Faran said the organisation had no terrorism links but added that its “strict orthodox fundamentalist teachings act as a bridge towards global extremism and armed jihad”.

For example, Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen who pleaded guilty in US federal court to conspiring to kill citizens of the United States as part of the September 11 attacks, is a former adherent of Tablighi Jamaat, Faran said.

He is currently serving six life sentences without parole at the Federal ADX Supermax Prison in Florence, Colorado.

Syed Rizwan was one of the two perpetrators of a terrorist attack at the Inland Regional Centre in San Bernardino, California which killed 14 people and injured 22 others in 2015 was also a Tablighi Jamaat student, said Faran.

“If there are member of Tablighi Jamaat who were recruited by militant groups, it is more likely they had already left Tablighi Jamaat as the movement does not allow violence,” he said.