Assailants Flee After Injuring 2 Cops When Unarmed Police Try To Nab Masjid Blast Suspect Viquar
With the nation still shaken by the Mumbai strikes, the chilling face of terror stalking Hyderabad for the last several months raised its head with impunity on Wednesday morning when three to four suspected terrorists fired at a police party in a crowded locality in the Old City area and made good their escape.
Two of the three-member police team sustained bullet injuries of whom a head constable is in a serious condition. While some police officials said Viquar Ahmed, the main suspect, is in their custody, Hyderabad police commissioner B Prasada Rao told HNN that none of the assailants involved in the incident have been arrested yet.
The incident happened in broad daylight at Indira Seva Sadan crossroads in Santoshnagar area in Old City. The intelligence department, which has been tracking the presence of Viquar Ahmed in the city for the past 10 days or so, got to know that the suspect was making a telephone call from a public booth and immediately alerted the personnel of the Counter Intelligence Cell (CIC) positioned at Saidabad to arrest Viquar. Around 12.50 pm, a threemember CIC team comprising head constables Guru Rama Raju, Mohammed Jaffar and D Khasim, came to IS Sadan crossroads and spotted Viquar speaking on the phone from VVR Communications shop. Rama Raju went in and as soon as Viquar completed his conversation, the policeman grabbed him. He was joined by Jaffar and the two punched a struggling Viquar and took him inside the next-door shop, Tanveer Sanitations.
Meanwhile, there was commotion outside. In the melee, Viquar pulled out a weapon and started firing at the cops. All of a sudden, an accomplice of Viquar barged into the shop and fired at the two policemen with a country-made pistol. The bullet missed the cops and in the scuffle, the assailant’s weapon fell down. But he whipped out another and shot at Rama Raju in the stomach. At this juncture, another accomplice of Viquar also entered the shop, and the two of them picked him up and escaped from the spot in a motorcycle. In all, the suspects are believed to have fired about five rounds.
Head constable Rama Raju collapsed in the sanitation shop while Jaffar sustained injuries on the wrist. Rama Raju is in a serious condition at Apollo Hospital in Jubilee Hills with injuries to his pancreas and liver. But in the strangest of revelations, it turned out that the police team did not carry any weapons. “CIC personnel normally do not carry weapons,” a senior official told HNN.
Twenty-five-year-old Viquar Ahmed, a resident of Old Malakpet, was a former activist of Darsgah-e-Jihad-o-Shahadat (DJS), a Muslim fundamentalist organisation till he disappeared from the city over a year ago after the Mecca Masjid blast on May 18, 2007. Police sources said he was holed up in Saudi Arabia and surfaced in the city about 10 days ago. Viquar was also a former activist of Simi and had taken part in several anti-US and anti-Denmark protests that were held by DJS in the city.
“The fact that he and his accomplices were carrying weapons and fired at the police party makes it clear he has committed some subversive acts,” one police officer said. At least two cases are pending against Viquar. In the first one, he was booked for possessing Jihadi literature and in the second, a case of criminal conspiracy was registered against him. City police claim Viquar is directly or indirectly involved in the terror attacks in the city.
Though police teams have fanned across the city, at this point, all they have is a Bajaj twowheeler scooter and a .9 mm country-made pistol left behind by the fleeing assailants. The owners of the communication and sanitation shops are being questioned to ascertain if they are involved in any way. The telephone calls made by Viquar is also being gathered to hunt for clues. Sulaiman alias Amjad, a cousin of Viquar was picked up by the police late in the night.
Police red-faced after botched operation
That the police are not willing to learn from the lessons of the Mumbai terror attack was made clear on Wednesday when three Hyderabad policemen set out to arrest a dreaded terrorist without carrying any weapons with them. Expectedly, the fallout was shameful, with the suspects managing to flee and one head constable fighting for his life after taking bullets in his stomach from the assailants.
Senior police officials had no answer when two basic facts pertaining to this incident was made known to them. First, that Saidabad, few minutes away from where the incident took place, has been a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalist activity because of which police teams belonging to the CID, Special Branch and Counter Intelligence Cell (CIC) are always on the prowl in the area. Despite all this, three unarmed cops descended on the spot to nab Viquar Ahmed, the 25-year-old former Simi and DJS activist who managed to walk away along with three of his associates.
Maulana Abdul Aleem Islahi, a preacher of extremist Islam, is a resident of Saidabad and under constant police surveillance. One of his sons is in jail for conspiracy against the state while another was shot dead by a Gujarat police team in Hyderabad in 2002. Maulana Naseeruddin, another fundamentalist, who is in a Gujarat jail for conspiracy against the state, is also from Saidabad. Yet, despite the presence of so many armed police teams in Saidabad, three unarmed cops went to apprehend Viquar.
The second major fact is that the city police had already described Viquar Ahmed as a dangerous suspect and was on the lookout for him. This newspaper had reported on October 7 this year that based on the confession of alleged Simi activist Baleeghuddin Jaber, the police registered a case of criminal conspiracy against the state and had made Viquar Ahmed accused number six in Cr No 213/08 of CCS. Yet again, three unarmed cops went to arrest a person who was sure to be armed with weapons.
While CIC officials maintained that their personnel are unarmed as they are involved only in the surveillance of suspects, they could not explain as to why the team proceeded to nab Viquar when they had no arms with them. One senior official said if Viquar was only a suspect till now, Wednesday’s incident is sure to convert him into a full-fledged terrorist. And he and his associates are armed and roaming the city.
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