Click to play videoHyderabad: Police investigations into the Mecca Masjid blasts are full of loopholes, learns CNN-IBN. Even three weeks after a powerful blast claimed 16 lives at Hyderabad's Mecca Masjid, the police have questioned just two men and arrested only one. Worse still, the two confidential reports prepared by them are more fiction than fact.
The report on the post-blast police firing says 17 rubber bullets were fired. The irony is that the Hyderabad police don’t even have an official quota for rubber bullets.
The report also justifies the firing. It says the mob was fired at because the people were going to attack Hindu houses in the neighborhood. But the fact is that the nearest Hindu homes were in Haribowly, which is over 2 kilometres away from the site.
The firing report also says the mob attacked the police immediately after the explosion. But the second report, which probes the blast, says the police held the mob off for 45 minutes.
Even the main suspects named by the police: a militant group called Ahle Hadees, are now being dismissed. And the explanation as to why Ahle Hadees was first named and then given the clean chit is even more vague.
“Actually that's a clerical mistake that was made in the column in the name of the accused/suspect. Some three-four groups were there I believe,” said M Kantha Rao, DCP South Zone, Hyderabad City Police.
A special investigation cell was formed just days after the blast to investigate the incident. The question, then, is why did the Hyderabad police then feel the need to prepare these confidential reports? And why are they now denying their own findings?
The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen party, which distributed copies of these reports to the media, has accused the police of trying to communalise the incident.
“Now we know that police really wanted a communal riot. But no such communal riot happened or will happen in Hyderabad. Shame on the police that incites communal violence,” said Asaduddin Owaisi, Hyderabad MP.
Sources say the city police has ordered an inquiry into the leakage of the reports. But the can of worms has been well and truly opened.
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