M A I N   N E W S

Police open fire to quell violence
Ramesh Kandula
Tribune News Service

Hyderabad, November 1
Tension gripped parts of the communally sensitive old city today during the funeral procession of Mujahid, a young man who was killed in firing by a visiting Gujarat police team on Sunday.

The police fired more than 20 rounds into a air to control a stone-throwing mob, after some policemen as well as media members covering the incident were injured.

Meanwhile, Home Minister K. Jana Reddy announced a magisterial inquiry into yesterday’s incident and also asked the police to file a criminal case under Section 302 against the Gujarat police over the firing incident.

Even though a massive police force was deployed in the old city fearing untoward incidents, policemen found it difficult to contain the emotionally charged atmosphere in and around Mujahid’s locality of Saidabad where his body was brought after postmortem from Osmania General Hospital. The situation could be brought under control only after the Minority Welfare Minister Fareeduddin and Additional Commissioner of Police A.K. Khan prevailed upon the community elders in the area to restrain the agitating youth and to carry away the body to the burial ground to complete the final rites.

The Gujarat team was here to arrest Moulana Naseeruddin, a suspect in Haren Pandya murder case. When the Moulana, president of the Tehreek Tehfooz Shariyat-e-Islam, who was on conditional bail in a case of conspiracy to blow away religious places in the city on the eve of the recent Ganesh Chaturthi, visited the DGP office to mark his mandatory presence on Sunday, the waiting team of Gujarat police, armed with a non-bailable warrant, immediately arrested him.

As the news spread, supporters of the Moulana waiting outside the DGP’s office, tried to rush inside. Sensing trouble, the Gujarat police team picked up the Moulana in a van and drove from the rear gate of the office. However, the agitators following them, pelted stones, overpowered the police and took away Naseeruddin. The police team caught up with the demonstrators at Ravindra Bharathi, a theatre for performing arts near the DGP’s office, and opened four rounds of fire, killing Mujahid, a young supporter of Moulana.

While the special police team took away Naseeruddin to Gujarat, the local police had a tough time controlling the agitating supporters until midnight.