Reacting sharply to the statement of Omar Abdullah, “Some will be out to vilify Muslims”, Brig Anil Gupta, Spokesperson of Bharatiya Janata Party accused Omar Abdullah, NC leader of attempting to communalise the present situation in the country by siding with the TablighiMarqaz in a series of tweets and trying to portray it as another case of “Islamophobia”. Reacting to media’s exposure of TablighiJamat’s irresponsible behaviour by holding a congregation at its headquarters in Nizammudin, New Delhi attended by approximately 2000 people including number of foreigners when the entire nation was trying to combat deadly Coronavirus and requesting citizens to maintain Social Distancing, Omar Abdullah gave a communal angle to the entire issue by tweeting, “Now the #TablighiJamat will become a convenient excuse for some to vilify Muslims everywhere as if we created & spread #Covid around the world.” “This habit of Omar to view everything with the narrow prism of “We” and “They” has been the root cause of breaking social fabric in J&K and he is now trying to spread it pan-India at a time when nation is confronted with a pandemic that does not distinguish between a Hindu or Muslim,” regretted Brig Gupta.

The media’s concern and outburst is justified when more than thousand have been quarantined, hundreds hospitalised and more than dozen deaths have resulted due to sheer negligence of the Marqaz administration. “Rather than criticising them for their lapses and irresponsible behaviour and without any remorse or sympathy for those who have suffered consequent to that, Omar has chosen to give communal twist to the entire episode to polarise the society at this critical juncture,” rued Brig Gupta. Reminding Omar of his selective pin-pricking, Brig Gupta said Omar conveniently ignored the sermon given by a Muslim Imam Jamil al-Mutawa at White House Mosque in Gaza on March 27 where he called Coronavirus” a “Soldier of Allah”, and celebrated the deaths of non-Muslims caused by Coronavirus, specifically praising Allah for deaths in California, China, Italy and Iran. However, Omar was quick to come to the defence of TablighiMarqaz by blaming “others” for vilifying the Muslims and backing the justification given by the Marqaz administration.

The justification is nothing but an ugly attempt at covering up their callous attitude, blind faith and irresponsible behaviour, stated Brig Gupta. The threat from Coronavirus was threatening the country from first week of March and it was declared as a pandemic by WHO on 11 March. Prior to that nation was advised to go slow with Holi celebrations and maintain Social Distancing. The Marqaz would have easily called off the congregation by acting in time much before the event began on 13 March. Marqaz failed to act even after the Delhi government banned any gathering of more than 50 people on 16 March. There was enough time between 16 March and 21 March to decongest the venue but nothing was done. Taking alibi of train cancellation and nation-wide lockdown from 23rd March is a face-saving exercise after putting at risk not only the lives of attendees but also promoting community spread because the attendees belonged to all states of the country, stated Brig Gupta.
“Rather than helping the administration track these potential bombs Omar has chosen to communalise the issue which is highly condemnable,” said Brig Gupta.