Assam police have formed a special unit to track down the people who are either evading the Covid-19 test despite attending the religious congregation of Nizamuddin in Delhi last month or have come in the contact with the Covid-19 positive cases of Assam.

The state government had said if they did not come forward voluntarily within Sunday, they would attract legal as well as police action.

The director-general of Assam police, Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, said: “A special task force (STF) team has been analysing the contacts of those who were already found to be infected. The police are taking the help of sophisticated technologies too. Already many have been traced and those who are left will be traced shortly.”

Sources said the police could also take action against people who might have been aiding or helping the Nizamuddin returnees by providing shelter or other logistics.

Despite repeated appeals of the government and various Muslim groups and clerics, many of the attendees of the Tablighi Jamaat at Nizamuddin continued to remain elusive, leading to a possible further spread of the deadly virus.

On Sunday, the state police detained nine persons who were also part of a Jamaat held in Mumbai and were hiding at Kharupetia in Darrang district. Though none of them had attended the Jamaat in Delhi, they were keeping themselves away from any kind of medical check-up.

The superintendent of police, Darrang, Amrit Bhuyan, told this correspondent: “All these people had come to Assam from Mumbai in February and since then they were visiting several mosques and attended religious meetings. Finally, they reached Kharupetia and hid themselves. Surprisingly, none of the villagers had informed about the matter.”

The police said one local, identified as Yakub Ali, had given them shelter and was hiding them. The nine persons were found in a room which was locked from outside. “They were kept in a locked room to mislead others. Ali is currently absconding,” a police source said.

All the nine will be sent for quarantine.

Assam police top brass and the state’s health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma also held an important meeting with the Lakhtokia Masjid leaders, where the state Tablighi Jamaat’s head office is located, on Saturday and requested them to share the list of all who had visited Nizamuddin.

Syed Aminul Alom, president of the Masjid Committee, told this correspondent: “There was no record with us about the movement of such large number of people to Nizamuddin. However, we had kept a register of the movements of local Jammatees which we have already handed over to city police.”

The Masjid Committee also appealed to the Nizamuddin returnees to disclose their identities voluntarily. “We want the police to take action if they do not come out voluntarily,” Alom added.

In Assam, out of 26 people who were tested positive, 25 has a link to the congregation in Delhi.