The funeral for Maulana Zubayer Ahmad Ansari, an Islamic teacher, broke the country's ban of no more than five people attending prayers at one time—more than 100,000 people came together to attend the funeral of the cleric and senior leader of the Islamist party in the district of Brahmanbaria.
This sparked new fears of a coronavirus outbreak emerging from the event.
This comes two days after Bangladesh declared that the entire territory of the country has been exposed to COVID-19 risks as the pandemic spread to various parts of the nation, which recorded the highest single-day coronavirus deaths on Friday with 15 more fatalities, taking the death toll to 75.
On April 10, the COVID-19 toll was six while 94 people were tested positive. Health Minister Zahid Malek said, “The fatality rate is growing...stay home to stay safe,”, adding that the virus has now spread to newer areas despite the lockdown.
Healthcare officials said 46 per cent of the infection cases were reported from the capital Dhaka followed by 20 per cent in the port town of Narayanganj on the outskirts of Dhaka.
The police were unable to control the crowd gathered at the funeral. As a result, the officer in charge and assistant superintendent withdrew from the event and a committee was formed to start an investigation into how such a large crowd was allowed to congregate, said Sohel Rana, the Bangladesh Police Central spokesman.
Post the event, local police officials were quoted in a Reuters report as saying, that they have ordered residents from seven villages to stay at home till they can identify if anyone has contracted the virus from the gathering.
Bangladesh has reported as many as 2,456 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and 91 deaths. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government has imposed a lockdown till April 25. But, people are starting to flout rules of the lockdown including powerful religious leaders, who are allowing small gatherings at mosques—people are still are attending Friday prayers since the holy month of Ramadan began last week.
