Cases under Foreigners Act have been registered against more than 100 religious preachers who have been quarantined in different districts of the region.

Over 100 foreign nationals from Sudan, Kenya, Djibouti, Indonesia, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Bangladesh etc have been booked under the Foreigners Act in Meerut, Saharanpur, Hapur, Bulandshahr and Shamli districts. These religious preachers were here on a tourist visa, however, they were involved in religious activities.

Cases have been registered under Section 14 b of Foreigners Act against 19 preachers staying in mosques in Sardhana and Mawana towns of the district. These are from Sudan, Djibouti, Kenya and Indonesia. The local guides of these religious preachers have also been booked by the police and are in quarantine. The samples of all of these have been sent for Corona testing.

In fact on Thursday, both Union and State governments have issued a guideline about the foreign preachers, said SP (Rural) Avinash Pandey adding that the passports of all foreign preachers have been confiscated and would be kept as case property all through the investigation. Besides, Section 14 b of Foreigners Act, cases have been registered under Section 14C against their local guides, informed SP Pandey.

The foreign preachers have violated the visa rules as they came here on a tourist visa and got involved in religious activities, said the SP adding that they also didn`t inform the local intelligence office about their arrival in the city.

The local guides of these preachers have been booked as they also did not tell about their movement to the concerned authorities which comes under the violation of Foreigners Act, he told.

In Saharanpur and Deoband, six cases have been registered against 57 foreign religious preachers who had come from Indonesia, Sudan, Kazakhstan and other countries. Here they got involved in religious activities which is in violation of the visa rules hence booked under Foreigners Act,  said SSP Saharanpur Dinesh Kumar.

District authorities of Shamli, Hapur and Bulandshahr districts also registered cases against nine foreign religious preachers from Thailand, eight from Bangladesh and 17 from Indonesia.