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"Mai kisi ka bhi dushman nahi". (I am no one's enemy)
This is what 37-year-old Mohammad Dilshad scribbled with a pencil on a piece of paper before he died by suicide in Himachal Pradesh's Una on 5 April 2020.
The first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic was in full spate. Dilshad's villagers had been boycotting him, blaming him for the spread of the virus. His only fault was that he had helped two people connected to the Tablighi Jamaat to reach their homes.
Just for helping someone, Dilshad was treated like an enemy by his own neighbours.
This was the time when TV anchors were shouting about "Corona Jihad" and blaming the Tablighi Jamaat for spreading COVID-19 in India.
Now, five years later, on 17 July 2025, the Delhi High Court ordered the quashing of the FIRs filed against 70 individuals linked to the Tablighi Jamaat during the pandemic.
The High Court stated that the Delhi Police had not presented any evidence to prove that the Tablighi Jamaat had violated government orders regarding COVID-19.
This vindicates the story The Quint had done on 31 March 2020.
We had shown how the Central government's national lockdown came into effect on 22 March 2020 and the Delhi government's orders against religious functions were issued on 16 March, both of which were after the Tablighi Jamaat Ijtima.
There was another Delhi government order a day before the Ijtima began, but that covered sports and cultural events, not religious functions.
The entire "Corona Jihad" narrative shown to you on news channels was false.
'Corona Jihad' and Lies Spread by the Media
We are all familiar with the reality of certain media outlets. But let's also take a look at those media organizations that claim to be free and unbiased. These were some of the headlines they used:
"Tablighi Jamaat has committed a crime against humanity"
"Why is Maulana Saad taking people towards death in the name of religion?"
"No excuses for what happened at Nizamuddin Markaz"
"Tablighi Jamaat and the role religion played as a super spreader".
Watch the full video to know the organisations who used these headlines. Then there were cartoons that targeted the Tablighi Jamaat by using using symbols associated with Muslims like skullcaps and long beards.
- 01/03
- 02/03
- 03/03
These organisations and individuals, without any evidence, blamed a Muslim organization for an international pandemic like COVID-19.
Hate Crimes During the Pandemic
In April 2020, The Quint published a detailed report showing that in many parts of the country, Muslims were attacked and wrongly accused of spreading COVID-19.
From Muslim fruit vendors being targeted in Uttarakhand's Haldwani to Muslim families being attacked by their Hindu neighbours in Haryana's Jind, mosques being attacked in Delhi and Gurugram.
Some of the most serious attacks took place in Karnataka. Muslims distributing food to stranded migrant workers were attacked with cricket bats in Bengaluru, a mosque was attacked in Belagavi and the entry of Muslim vendors was banned in parts of Mangluru.
In some of these cases, such as the attack in Bengaluru, the attackers specifically cited the Tablighi Jamaat as a pretext for attacking Muslims.
Our report compiling these incidents was cited in a report by the International Commission of Jurists, among several other academic papers.
The Quint had also debunked fake news being spread targeting the Tablighi Jamaat during the pandemic.
Claims such as Tablighi Jamaat members roaming naked or 100 nurses resigning due to them were debunked by The Quint's fact-check team.