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Head of state status for Bohra chief during COVID-19 retreat here
View(s):Dawoodi Bohra leader Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin will be given head of State status when he arrives in Sri Lanka with 45 others on a special flight scheduled for June 21, the Government has confirmed.
Permission has been granted for the aircraft to land and a number of other followers are expected to arrive separately. They will thereafter retire to a retreat in Bandarawela where they are expected to stay till the COVID-19 pandemic in India eases.
The visit comes in the wake of Dr. Syedna’s permanent residence ‘Saifee Mahal’, in Mumbai’s upmarket Malabar Hills having thirteen (13) persons detected positive with COVID-19 since June 6 and 40 others at the residence being tested for the virus with help from the Saifee hospital. The building in which the 13 positive cases were found has been declared a “containment zone” by the Mumbai Municipal Council.
The community has promised to undergo PCR testing 48 hours before departure and will bring the results with them. The Indian Express reported that Dr Syedna and his immediate family have been camping in Khandala, a hill station in the Western Ghats of Maharashtra in India, since the lockdown began in that State.
The 13 positive cases are all in one of the three buildings in ’Saifee Mahal’. The building has been sealed. Those who had developed symptoms or had comorbidities have been shifted to Saifee hospital.
A Dawoodi Bohra community spokesperson has confirmed that several people in Syedna’s Malabar Hill residence have tested positive, but said Syedna’s immediate family had left for Khandala and had been there for more than two months.
At ‘Saifee Mahal’, a public relations officer denied to Indian media plans of the Bohra leader and his entourage to visit Sri Lanka after the Sunday Times last week exclusively reported the visit.
President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s International Affairs adviser Jayantha Colombage confirmed that the Government of Sri Lanka would be giving state patronage to the visiting dignitary.