With not many reliable leads that could help confirm the exact number of people from each State at the mid-March Tablighi Jamaat gathering in New Delhi, the police is going the old fashioned way, scanning hundreds of numbers using a method called ‘dump data analysis’.
Thousands of people from all over India and other Asian countries attended a gathering at the Alami Markaz Banglewali Mosque in Nizamuddin — headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat. The event is now being said to be among the biggest wellsprings of infection of novel coronavirus in the country.
Senior police officers told The Hindu that police forces in all States has received a list from “Delhi”, read central agencies, containing hundreds of cell phone numbers with their located at and around the venue on the day of the gathering. The police now is faced with the mammoth task of looking into each number to find out if it belongs to an actual attendee or not. The process, known as dump data analysis, literally means analysing each number from a large dump of numbers, all of which are treated as suspect till confirmed to be innocent.
“We have split the list and sent relevant numbers to each city or district commissionerate, with instructions to get back to us at the soonest. The list comes with registration details and the police will have to check with the every owner whether they were at the Markaz or just happened to be near the area at the time. Dump data analysis, like any other technique that depends on cellular locations, is an imperfect science as we can only identify the tower providing network to the number and not the exact location of the user,” a senior Maharashtra Police officer said.
The officer said that even after checking on each user personally, the police still has to account for the users hiding the truth.
Meanwhile, according to sources, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also held a telephonic conversation with Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Wednesday morning advising him to trace all participants at the Markaz from Maharashtra.
Mumbai Police officials, meanwhile, said they have identified 150 people from across the city who were possibly at the event.
“Local informants are being tapped to verify the information. As regards foreign nationals who attended the event, we are seeking information from the Airport Authority of India and the Foreigner Regional Registration Office,” the officer said.
