A fact-finding team of the Hyderabad based Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee visited Dilsukhnagar bomb blast site, the nearby places and the various hospitals where the victims were admitted and spoke to different people, officials, and victims to know the details of the bomb blasts. In its report on 27 March, the fact-finding team said inter alia:
“The evening of 21st February was crowded at Dilsukhnagar. During this time, people come out of their offices, students on the road increase after the college and tutorials and coaching centers timings, families come out on evenings for shopping purposes because this area is famous for shopping malls. There are many business establishments in this area such as shopping Malls, electric and electronic shops, hardware shops, hotels, Tiffin centers, cinema halls, mobile shops, medical shops, colleges, coaching centers and many other small and big shops. Along with this there is a famous Saibaba Mandir, where blast had taken place earlier in the year 2001. This area and business is dominated by the Andhra region people.
“As the evening was busy and jam packed, suddenly twin blasts occurred between 6.50 to 7.10 pm with a gap of three minutes between two blasts at two places one in front of Konark theatre near Anand Tiffin centre and another before Venkatadri theatre beside the bus stop. There is a distance of about 100 meters between these two places. As per the people’s version these two bombs were placed on cycles. According to the eye witness, Mani Kumar, MCA student, L.B. Nagar, the blasts were so powerful that people were blown into the air up to 10 feet high and fell down. Most of them who died were professionals and students in the age group of 19-30 years of age.
“Immediately after the blasts people ran helter skelter, they were unable to understand as to what happened suddenly and people ran to save their lives. As per the information received, these bombs were made by using Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in which highly explosive material was used but these were not time bombs. The city was already under high alert due to Telangana movement and present political situation of Andhra Pradesh and immediately after the blasts, Red Alert was declared all over the city. At the place of incidents itself 15 people died on the spot and hundreds got injured. Police station is very nearby the places of incidents. Police personnel are always present in that area, so they were able to reach there immediately.
“The locals made calls for the ambulance and the injured were shifted to hospitals. The injured were shifted to various hospitals such as Yashoda, Omni, Care, Asra and Osmania hospitals. Those who were severely injured were shifted to Yashoda, whereas, the dead were shifted to Osmania hospital. Locals also informed that lots of problems took place to shift the injured to the hospitals, because the local police failed to control the public who had gathered at the spot.
“The dead persons were identified as Eijaz, Polytechnic student Amberpet, Mohammed Rafeeq Hafiz Baba Nagar, Vijaykumar and Rajshekhar of Mancherial, A. Ramulu Warasiguda, Amanullah Khan Chanchalguda, Vijaykumar Adilabad, Sudhakar Rao Karimnagar, Ganga Triveni Karimnagar, Sonia U Reddy Kandigal Gate, S. Anand Kurnool, B. Lakshmi Saroor Nagar, M. Venkateshwar Malakpet, Chugaram Gaddiannaram, M. Shiva Ramannapet, Rajaiah Himayat Nagar, Swapna Reddy Uppuguda, P. Kulkarni Dilsukhnagar, K. Harish Engineering student Dilsukhnagar, Raju, Anand, Venkatesh, Srinivas Reddy, Ramulu Jamia Osmania, Venkateshwar Rao Trupti and Shivani. All these dead bodies were shifted to Osmania Hospital Mortuary, the bodies were in a pool of blood and their clothes were torn; the stretchers were not sufficient; all the bodies were dumped at one place. People present at the hospital were stunned by seeing the scene of dead bodies.
“The severely injured were Sanna Reddy Karimnagar, Swati B.N.Reddy Nagar, Suri Chaitanya puri, Md. Jaweed Zahirabad, Vignesh L.B. Nagar, Monika Hyderabad, Md. Ajju Omer Hyderabad, Sunni Omer Hyderabad, Gopal Reddy, B.N. Reddy Nagar, Narsimha Reddy, Sudha Hyderabad, Rupa Dilsukhnagar, Abdul Wasey Mirza, Samad Omer, Shiva Kumar, Ram Murthy, Rajitha, Ram Kumar, Parasuram, Panduranga Reddy, Srinivas Rao, Mallikarjun, Azeemuddin Santoshnagar, P. Gangaram and his relatives Gangulamma, Ravinder, Archana, Anil, Lakshmi were shifted to Yashoda Hospital, Malakpet.
“The feelings of the near relatives of the persons who died in the blasts cannot be expressed in mere words. In brief, they did not ever imagine that they would get such news about their near and dear ones and would see their dead bodies. One youth Mohammed Rafeeq who died in the bomb blast, was working in the leather shop. On the tragic day he started from home in the morning and did not return in the evening. His father got a call from his elder son asking them to reach Osmania Hospital immediately. The family members got worried and went to the hospital and found their son’s dead body in a pool of blood. The father of the deceased Mr. Ameeruddin said, ‘my son’s untimely death has ruined our lives’.
“Sapna a resident of Chatrinaka, Hyderabad was also one of them who got killed in the blasts. She is the youngest among 4 children to her parents. She had lost her father some 15 years back and they belong to lower middle class family. After her father’s expiry her only brother managed the house and married off two sisters. Unable to see the difficulties faced by the brother in managing the house, she also decided to help him financially and joined as a receptionist at Islamia Engineering and Management Institute at Bandlaguda. She stayed at the college hostel itself. While working she also joined an MBA course at the same college thinking that if the qualifications are improved she can get a good job. On the tragic day she called her family and informed that she will be reaching home in about one hour after completing her project work. One hour passed but she did not reach home, but a call came from her college informing that Sapna has died in the blasts. The family did not know that the wait for their sister would be never ending. They went to the place of blast and to all the hospitals but did not find their sister. Finally they reached Osmania Hospital where her body was lying in Mortuary. Sapna’s mother, who already had lost her husband, went under deep shock with the death of her daughter and became a statue-like person. Her brother said that, ‘after completing her studies, we thought she will get a better job and she will lead a happy life, but this tragedy took place…. we were waiting for her after her call, but we never thought that this waiting for her would turn into never ending wait for her’.
“17 years old Aijaz Ahmed, a polytechnic student of Sanjay Gandhi college resident of Amberpet lost his life in these blasts. According to his father, ‘these blasts have taken away my son; a father only can understand the tragedy of losing a son’. He also said that ‘to perform the last rites of a young son is the most difficult part for a father’. There were a number of his fellow non-Muslim students present at his funeral. His teacher Mr. Muralidhar Gupta said that their college has lost a bright student….
“The mindset of media and police has become in such a manner, that whenever any tragedy or incidence happens, they consider only Muslims are responsible for such acts.
“This mindset has reached to such an extent that if a Muslim is dead or injured in the blast the media and police start their investigation from that person itself. And they question him as to why he was present at the blast scene. And if at all a person gets injured twice in different blasts, then the media and police completely suspect him as how can he be present at the blast site two times. They look at him with suspect and never think of what is he going through mentally and physically.
“One such case is of Abdul Wasif Mirza, who is 25 years old and severely injured in Dilsukhnagar bomb blast. Earlier when the Makkah Masjid blast took place he was 19 years old and he was severely injured in that blast too. That time it took 2 years for him to recover completely due to severe injuries on leg and stomach because of which he also had to drop his college studies. Till now some pellets are still in his body from previous blast. On this ill-fated day he went to Dilsukhnagar for business purpose along with his cousin who was selling clothes on footpath and incidentally he once again came under the attack of bomb blast and he suffered with severe injuries on his back and left lumbar. Then from the blast victim he was turned into prime suspect by police and media only because he is a Muslim. Within no time media and police started harassing him through investigation and interrogated him on his hospital bed whereas the doctors were saying that speaking to him is dangerous to his life. Police started collecting the past and old record of Abdul Wasif Mirza and also his record prior to 2007.
“After surviving twice from the bomb blast what did he gain, he became the prime suspect and target of police and media. He became the starting point of investigation. This is called “Mind set-up” of police and media. Instead of expressing solidarity with this youth and his family who were under trauma they were forced to explain and defend themselves. His father with the folding hands appealed to the media to leave them alone, whatever the matter is the court will decide and we leave the matter to the court. With this one example we can say how prejudiced our “Civilized Media” is! The fate of a Muslim is such that he is seen only in the terms of terrorist even if he gets injured or dies. This is not the first time, we have witnessed the same when the Muslims got injured and died in the Lumbini Park and Gokul Chat bomb blasts. This is the biggest tragedy for the Muslims even when they get injured; some of them did not even go to the hospital due to the fear of police harassment and media trial….”