By Sonali Rao
The incident of terror suspects spraying bullets on policemen in broad daylight at IS Sadan has put Hyderabadis on tenterhooks. With the Mumbai attack fresh in their memory, the citizens took no chances and rushed home.
“Why cannot anybody stop this?” was the question playing on most minds on Wednesday afternoon after hearing the news on the attack on police officials by armed men.
Several axious employees either rushed home early or stayed on till late hours in their offices. Meanwhile, security has been beefed up at star hotels in the city and MNCs sent messages to their employees informing them of security beef-up.
“My wife asked me to return home after she heard of the incident. I told her than I will come home late. I thought it would be safe to stay in the office rather than venture out,” Rajdeep Singh, a wholesale textile merchant from the Old City and resident of Road Number 3, Banjara Hills, told HNN.
As a precautionary measure, some MNCs supsended their cab services in the evening. “The cabs were not allowed to hit the road. We waited for almost two hours till to get the all-clear signal. SMSes were sent to employees who had already set out from home so that they could take precautions,” a Google employee said. Other companies, including TCS and Wipro, had also alerted their employees with SMS.
“My children were at St Ann’s school, Santhinagar, when I heard rumours about the attack. I went to school and got my children home safely. If at all something happens, I wanted the family to be together,” Suhra Fathima Jalal, a resident of Masab Tank, said.
Some employees went back home early fearing a Mumbaistyle terror attack. “Some of us are going to Koorg for a short vacation. To compensate that, we were working extra hours. However, when news of the firing broke out, we wanted to go home early. The team lead (head) also agreed readily as no one could tell how bad the situation could be,” Sudarsan Kumar Rayla, a student and an employee of a content development firm, said.
Though many were scared, there were some who went to the spot just to check out the truth of the matter. “We wanted to know what went wrong and wanted to talk to police and ask them why this was happening,” Amit Amlan, a student of the English and Foreign Languages University, told HNN.
The residents of the city expressed their anguish over the failure of the police set-up. “Though authorities are talking about an NSG like force, they seldom present the level of preparedness at the ground level. The city police still lacks personnel and many posts are unfilled. There is no mechanism to prevent attack in spite of repeated strikes,” Kulbinder Singh, a resident of Malaysian Township, said.
With fear psychosis gripping the city, many families cancelled their outings in the evening . “No place seems to be safe. Do we have to live with this fear always or will somebody do some thing to stop it?” software engineer Unni Balakrishnan questioned.
Why is the police soft on DJS?: The spotlight has once against fallen on Darsgah-e-Jihad-o-Shahadat (DJS), a Hyderabad-based Muslim organisation that champions jihad and martyrdom. Viquar Ahmed, who was involved in the shooting incident at Santoshnagar on Wednesday, was an active member of DJS. In fact, DJS is the only organisation that is granted permission by the police to hold protests on the anniversary of the demolition of the Babri Masjid on December 6. Viquar had been arrested on several occasions for taking part in anti-US and anti-Denmark protests held by the DJS. “With December 6 just a couple of days away, Wednesday’s incident has heightened the tensions in Old City,” one police official said.
In fact, the activites of DJS itself demands closer scrutiny from the authorities. “For the past 21 years the DJS has trained and are training thousands of Muslim youths to defend themselves and to help, protect and defend the other Muslims brethren in various training centre’s of DJS... The DJS trained has right to join any Muslim group or organisation, as a result they are serving all the Muslim groups and organisations."
This is how DJS describes itself on its website, not updated for four years clearly since it is currently celebrating its 25th year of operations. Such claims notwithstanding, the state is yet to ban DJS. Started in 1983 by S Mahboob Ali, a retired employee of a government printing press to “establish and perform Islamic obligations", DJS has been organising camps to train young men in “self defence". Some of these young men, alumni of the DJS, have hit national headlines for their involvement in terror attacks, the most recent name being that of Mohammad Shahid, the alleged mastermind of the twin blasts in Hyderabad.
In fact, a few months ago, Ali said at a press conference that his grandson had “crossed over to ISI’’ and refused to come back home. But why hasn’t the DJS been banned yet, ask senior members of the community, wondering whether the police is inadvertently or consciously supporting this outfit. They note that no other organisation, excluding the DJS, is allowed to take out a rally on December 6 every year.
The DJS has spoken openly about its aim — of “removing the community’s sorrow, to safeguard lives and properties of Muslims and to educate Muslims about jihad".
Police officials say that the party’s key activity is indoctrination of the youth from the Old City of Hyderabad. By the organisation’s own admission, it has many training centres in the twin cities, a few districts of Andhra Pradesh and hopes to set more centres across the country. But the police are still curiously turning a blind eye to it.
While Mahboob Ali is the president of the group, his son-in-law Abdul Majid Khan is the vice president. Ali’s son, Saifullah Khan, is the secretary. “While these are the three key people of the organisation, it is run single handedly by Ali, who despite his age (75) holds charge," a police official says.
The outfit holds a monthly training camp every year where it trains 30 to 40 young boys from mainly Muslim pockets such as Mogulpura, Rein Bazaar, Saidabad among others. “The training involves karate lessons and lathi drills, apart from sermons,’’ says an official, adding that Ali remains DJS’ best provocative speaker.
Although the training is only for a month, it’s the preparation for this 30-day meet that keeps DJS busy through the year. “They hold meetings and decide how to gather or handpick people for the monthly training,’’ says an Old City source.
For the local police, however, the remaining months of the year when the DJS is not busy with trainings are spent in policing its other activities, mainly their processions.
“We have cases booked against the outfit, mainly for taking out procession without permission or for unlawful assembly," says a Saidabad police inspector, where the DJS is located.
In 2004, 20 members of DJS had created trouble when the Gujarat police was in the city to arrest Nasruddin, involved in Haren Pandya’s murder. “There was a case booked against three persons including party president and some followers. The trial is going on,’’ the police official says.
However, while DJS is largely perceived as a fundamentalist outfit, it has sympathizers in the Old City. “They are fair people and teach Islam. There is nothing wrong with what they teach. The police likes to target Islamic organizations,’’ says a teacher in the Old City.
No comments:
Post a Comment