Even before the controversy over Tablighi Jamaat corona contagion is yet to die down, a religious congregation in Kakinada has kicked up another storm.

A pastor on Sunday was arrested by the Kakinada police for holding an evangelical meeting in clear violation of the complete lockdown regulation declared by the Andhra Pradesh government.

More than 150 devotees who took part the evangelical meeting reportedly came from different parts of Kakinada in violation of lockdown and inside the church the attendees also threw the social distancing norms to the wind. The central government had banned all religious gatherings and asked the religious leaders to keep the daily rituals in temples, churches or mosques a low-key affair.

India has so far reported more than 3,300 positive cases of corona, death toll climbed to 77. The spike in number of positive corona cases in the country and the deaths were linked to the Tablighi Jamaat religious congregation in South Delhi’s Nizamuddin as the attendees are believed to have spread the virus to families and communities across the country from Telangana, Andhra Pradesh to Kashmir to the Andaman Islands to Tamil Nadu. The Delhi government had sealed the Markaz and ferried hundreds of Tablighis to hospitals and quarantine facilities.

On Saturday, AP Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy in a video-conference with his Cabinet colleagues said it was wrong to hold a particular community solely responsible for the spread of virus, instead people should view it as an unfortunate event. The Chief Minister said such spread of virus could have occurred any of the spiritual gatherings held across the country; therefore it was completely wrong to blame a particular community.