ABSTRACT
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed myriad vulnerabilities of modern world, severely questioning the so-called human progress especially in the sphere of scientific innovations and advances in global health care system. It also exposed the socio-religious divide and defiance within communities and lack of collective responsibilities in the face of this gargantuan COVID-19 challenge. As the coronavirus spread to all inhabited continents and affected people irrespective of their color, creed, and character, obstinate and opportunistic ultra conservative religious groups willfully resisted and defied prescribed norms to restrict horizontal spread of the deadly pathogen. These mainstream ultra conservative groups or sects with different religious background observed the virus as a God-sent force and it is playing havoc due to widespread disobedience to God and increasing human sins on this earth. These conservative religious groups irrespective of Muslims, Jewish and Christians invoked eschatological belief such as “Day of Judgement” to justify the disease spread and deaths as “God given phenomena” and “He” only can help the humanity from this viral disaster. These groups and their spiritual leaders for example for example, Tablighi Jamaat congregations in India and Pakistan) or the “Khatme Shifa” Islamic prayer event at Raipur, Bangladesh, showed irresponsible behavior and sometimes willful negligence to exacerbate the virus spread. Termed often as “super-spreader,” they have violated pandemic specific health guidelines by international and national bodies and defied the laws of land by invoking god's law to protect the believers or faithful. This paper highlights controversial, rather critical role of religious and faith-based congregations in South Asian region, especially in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. The paper also examines how these groups practice of collective prayers, assembly, and covert traveling have accelerated virus transmissions and compromised safety and security.
