One Year after Makkah Masjid Blast Police Stands Clueless, Innocents Suffer

Hyderabad: A year has passed to the deadly bomb blast in Makkah Masjid during a Friday congregation but the hand behind the dastardly act remains uncovered. The city police commission B Prasad Rao has admitted that police could not make any progress in the investigations in the blast case. But he continued the claim of…

Written by

OUR CORRESPONDENT

Published on

June 19, 2022

Hyderabad: A year has passed to the deadly bomb blast in Makkah Masjid during a Friday congregation but the hand behind the dastardly act remains uncovered. The city police commission B Prasad Rao has admitted that police could not make any progress in the investigations in the blast case. But he continued the claim of this being handiwork of “HUJI”.

“Both the cases of the blast as well as recovery of an unexploded bomb in the Makkah Masjid have been handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigations but they have not filed any charge sheet so far,” Prasad Rao said as a tense city marked the first anniversary of the blast on May 18.

The blast near the ablution tank in the courtyard of the historic mosque just after the Friday congregation had snuffed out the lives of nine worshippers. The Hyderabad city police not only failed in brining the real culprits to the book but is also finding itself in the dock over the way it targeted the Muslim community soon after the blast.

The indiscriminate firing by the police on the people returning from the Makkah Masjid after the blast remains unexplained till today. Policemen opened fire using the deadly self loading rifles, never used in civilian areas and killed five persons and injured scores of others.

A judicial commission is conducting a separate inquiry into the firing incident and the top police officials including the then police commissioner Balwinder Singh have been put in the dock. The sustained grilling by Shafeequr-Rahman Mohajir, the counsel for Hyderabad member of Parliament Asaduddin Owaisi has brought out many glaring discrepancies in the statements of police officials that they were forced to open fire as the angry mob was trying to burn a petrol pump and planning to attack the homes of Hindu community.

The biased attitude of the police has also come to the fore during the investigations right from the day one. Within hours of the blast the police officials started making claims that the blast was handiwork of Bangladesh based Harkatul Jehad-e-Islami and similar organisations based in Pakistan. The entire investigations were based on this presumption and accordingly more than 90 Muslim youth were picked up from the Muslim dominated old city. Many of them were brutally tortured and subjected to third degree methods including electric shocks to force them to admit involvement in the blast and other terrorist activity. When torture did not work, they were also made an offer of lakhs of rupees if they own the responsibility.

Finally when the youth did not bow to the police pressure, 28 of them were booked in other older cases. Some of them including one Dr. Ibrahim Junaid were booked in a criminal conspiracy case claiming they were in possession of Jehadi literature. Many of them have now come out on bail and a group of 20 youth have even field a suit against the police seeking a compensation of Rs 20 lakh each for the damage the police allegations had caused to their person and reputation.

The failure of the police in catching the real culprits has only emboldened them to the extent that they repeated the attack in the city within three months.

On August 25, Hyderabad city was rocked by twin blasts. The bomb blasts in Lumbini Park opposite the state secretariat and a popular eatery in Kothi area claimed 40 lives throwing the city into panic and confusion once again. The act was obviously aimed at triggering communal clashes in the city but the fact that both Hindus and Muslims had suffered loss of life foiled that design.

Once again the police failed to make any progress in the investigations except describing it as the act of terrorist based outside the country and raising fingers against HUJI. “This investigation will also meet the same fate as that of Makkah Masjid blast,” confided a senior police official soon after the blast.

“We are still investigating the case and hoping for some clues to emerge,” says Prasad Rao but he did not elaborate from where these clues would come.

Like the Makkah Masjid blast, the twin blasts also saw the media frenzy at its peak indulging in all sorts of speculations and gossips about involvement of Muslim organisations and individuals. One Abdul Shahid alias Bilal, a Hyderabadi youth, who has been missing for the last five years, became the favourite whipping boy of both the police and the media. They said Bilal along with other activists of HUJI had organised the blasts in the city. But why Muslims would target a holy place like mosque remains unanswered and unexplained. “My son can never do such a thing. He can never attack Makkah Masjid because he knows that I offer prayers there every Friday,” said Abdul Wahed, father of Shahid. But his protestations of innocence only provoked the police more and his other two sons Zahed and Majid were also picked one after the other and they are still behind the bars on the charges of links with Shahid.

As in other parts of the country, the mystery of blasts in Hyderabad remains unsolved, culprits remain untraced and the people are on the edge fearing where the next attack will take place.