Chief Medical Officer of Banda Santosh Kumar said results of coronavirus samples of these students were awaited. (Representational Image)
Eleven students of a madrasa in Banda district have been kept in isolation in the district hospital after the administration learnt that they had attended a Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi’s Nizamuddin area last month.
The students, aged between 15 and 25 years, had reportedly gone to Delhi without informing madrasa authorities. Chief Medical Officer of Banda Santosh Kumar said results of coronavirus samples of these students were awaited. He said the 11 students have not been added to the list of Tablighi Jamaat members. However, madrasa authorities said that the student had visited Delhi between March 1 and 11.
The district administration has screened 550 other students and quarantined them in the madrasa. A notice has also been pasted outside the madrasa warning people not to visit it, said sub-divisional magistrate, Sadar (Banda), Shri Prakash Shukla. A police team has been deployed outside madrasa to ensure no student or madrasa staff steps out, said Pawan Kumar Jaiswal, tehsildar of Sadar (Banda).
Administration officials were tipped off on March 1 that a few students from madrasa had been to the Nizamuddin Markaz. “Initially, four students admitted to have gone to Nizamuddin and their medical examination was conducted. They were taken to a hospital where they have been kept in isolation. The next day, I made an announcement through a mike asking children to step forward if they had visited Nizamuddin. Seven other students came forward. The students said they withheld the information about their visit because they were scared,” said madrasa’s manager Maulana Habib Ahmed.
“The district administration has screened 550 other students who could not return to their houses because of sudden announcement of lock down,” said Ahmed, adding that madrasa is run by a society.
There are around 2,500 students in the madrasa. Students, who could not return home, are from other states such as Maharashtra, Bihar and Hyderabad.