NEW DELHI: The home ministry has asked all states and Union territories to screen Rohingya Muslims living in their jurisdictions, for possible Covid-19 infection.

This comes amid reports that some Rohingya Muslims from Hyderabad and Shaheen Bagh, Delhi, who attended Tablighi Jamaat events at Nizamuddin Markaz and Mewat, Haryana had subsequently visited Rohingya camps in other parts of the country like Jammu and Punjab.

It accordingly asked the states/UTs to screen Rohingya Muslims and their contacts for Covid-19 on priority.

An intelligence source told TOI that it is common for Rohingya Muslims to attend Tablighi Jamaat events. “They are all part of the same Dawah, though Tablighi Jamaat does not reach out to non-Muslims,” said an officer.

Police sources in Jammu, where the largest number of Rohingyas are based across India, told TOI that Rohingyas from Hyderabad had visited Rohingya camps there. “However, they all have tested negative for COVID-19,” said a senior officer of J&K police. It was not clear if all the Jammu Rohingyas who came in contact with the Hyderabad Rohingyas were also screened.

According to estimates put together by the intelligence agencies in 2017, there were around 40,000 Rohingya Muslims illegally settled across the country. Of these, 7,096 were in J&K (Jammu), 3,059 in Hyderabad, 1,114 in Mewat (Haryana), 1,200 in western Uttar Pradesh, 1,061 in Delhi (Okhla) and 400 in Jaipur.