State governments identified on Wednesday nearly 8,700 people who attended the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi and deployed a large posse of police and intelligence officers and anti-terror personnel to trace anyone who attended the event that has emerged as the country’s biggest Covid-19 hotspot.

All of them, including the son of a Jharkhand minister, have been quarantined.

Data from the Union health ministry showed that 154 of the 356new cases of infection reported on Wednesday — — or nearly 43% — were people who attended the event held in Delhi’s Nizamuddin.

So far, seven of the attendees — six in Telangana and one in Kashmir — have died. The Centre has sounded a nationwide alert and asked police in states to trace all people who attended the congregation and get them tested for Covid-19.

Wednesday was the second day of tracking attendees but top officials said they expected the number of people linked to the event to rise in the coming days as many people who attended the weeks-long event came back to their homes in the first week of March.

In some states like Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, members of the Jamaat attended the summit on a weekly rotational basis, officials said. “Entire Muslim dominated areas are being scanned,” said a Bihar government official, who was not willing to be named.

Across states, officials scanned all local mosques and directed heads of gram panchayats to provide information about the attendees who haven’t contacted the authorities.

The biggest jump was reported in Haryana, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Officials In Haryana and Rajasthan, most of the 503 and 524 attendees identified, respectively, hailed from the Mewat region, which begins at the edge of the national capital region and comprises parts of Haryana and Rajasthan. Police officers in the two states said they were trying to find out whether some of the attendees were foreigners.

“If they turn out to be foreigners, the persons who provided them lodging will be booked for violating the orders asking people to inform presence of foreigners,” said a senior Rajasthan police officer on condition of anonymity. Haryana home secretary Vijai Vardhan said the entire Mewat region was being scanned with the help of Rajasthan government.

In Himachal Pradesh, the state government released a list of 840 persons who travelled to Nizamuddin but it was not immediately known how many of them attended the Jamaat event. On Tuesday, the figure was 17.

In Maharashtra, authorities identified over 300 persons and in Gujarat, officials named 72 people who attended the congregation. All of them have been quarantined and their swabs have been taken for Covid-19 tests.

In Uttar Pradesh, the police identified 569 Jamaat members who attended the Nizamuddin meeting in March, said additional chief secretary, home, Awanish Awasthi. In Uttarakhand, 230 attendees were identified.

Awasthi said the police were also searching for 218 foreign nationals, who had come to participate in the congregation in Delhi and were staying in different places across Uttar Pradesh. Awasthi said they were also looking whether the foreigners violated visa norms, which prohibits persons coming on tourist visa to visit a religious function.

In Andhra Pradesh, as many as 812 people were identified as having direct and indirect links with the Jamaat meeting . In Telangana, the government identified 1,030 persons who had attended the event. Officials in the two states said their health conditions are being monitored.

In Assam, all 13 Covid-19 patients had attended the congregation. Of the 547 attendees, 230 have been traced, said health minister Himata Biswa Sarma, appealing to the attendees to voluntarily contact local health authorities.

In Bihar, where only 86 attendees, apart from 57 foreign nationals, have been tracked, the government asked the state’s anti-terror squad and district police to look for the returnees. “Those who attended the religious gathering at Nizamuddin will be traced. We are coordinating with other states to trace them,” said Bihar police chief Gupteshwar Pandey.

In neighbouring Jharkhand, Mohammad Tanveer, the son of Jharkhand minister Haji Hussain Ansari, was among the 37 people who attended the event. Tanveer is now in quarantine.

“The minister’s son Md Tanveer and one another have been sent to quarantine run by the administration. Their samples had been taken and sent for testing for Covid-19. They are fully cooperating with the administration,” Deoghar SP NK Singh said,

Ansari, however, said his son had not gone to Delhi since 1993 when he studied there.