HYDERABAD, Jan 6: Police were placed on high alert and security at Muharram events was beefed up after an intelligence agency report that one or two potential suicide bombers had entered the city.
“The report emanating from an intelligence agency has been doing the rounds since Monday that one or two suicide bombers are in Hyderabad but so far all the main events have been held without any disturbance or unpleasant incident,” said a police source, requesting anonymity.
He expressed the hope that the remaining two days of 9th and 10th Muharram would also pass peacefully.
A source said that police beefed up security at all venues of Muharram events were after receiving the information that one suicide bomber had crossed Matiari and would reach Hyderabad.
“We sealed the routes of a mourning procession and took the organisers and volunteers into confidence on the report and sought their help in containing panic in the area,” the source claimed.
Police had received similar information last year that suspects who could be potential suicide bombers due to their links with bombers had arrived in the city. Police had then claimed making some arrests at the bus stand and other parts of the city.
RAID: A judicial magistrate raided Bhittai Nagar police station on Tuesday to recover eight people who their lawyer believed had been detained wrongfully, but found their names on police record, indicating they had been called for interrogation about the case of kidnapping of four sisters and their father.
The magistrate found relevant entries made in station diary about the eight people and directed the SHO to appear in court on Jan 9.
The sessions court ordered the raid on an application filed by the detainees’ relative, Nawab Panwhar. The applicant’s counsel said that Ghulam Mohammad Panwhar, a former DSP, Ameer Ali, Nazeer, Umaid Ali, Mumtaz, Akbar, Ali Akbar Riaz and Farooq were wrongfully detained at the police station.
He said that they were picked up by police on charges of kidnapping of four sisters and their father Abdul Ghani Turk allegedly by in-laws of Turk’s son. In fact the detainees’ own relative, Sadaf Fatima, was kidnapped by Turks, he said.
The applicant also sought protection against police harassment through a separate application and cited DPO of Hyderabad, SP investigation and SHO of Bhittai Nagar police station as respondents.
He said that police were unnecessarily raiding the home of former commissioner of income tax Manzoor Panwhar and harassing his family members.
The court fixed hearing of the case for Jan 9.
According to eyewitness account, over half a dozen men kidnapped 65-year-old Abdul Ghani Turk and his daughters Sarosh, 26, Sadaf, 22, Sahar, 20, and Mahreen, 19 on Jan 4.
An FIR lodged by Turk’s son, Umair Ghani, said that the family had been changing places since his brother Rahim Turk had married Sadaf Panwhar, daughter of a senior income tax official Manzoor Panwhar, in Sept 2007.