Can't rule out saffron brigade's hand in Hyderabad twin blasts'

Hyderabad, Feb 25: In the wake of the revival of terror witch hunt in Hyderabad after last week's twin blasts, various human rights and secular organisations have urged the Centre and the Andhra Pradesh Government to carry out a thorough and impartial probe into the incident instead of jumping to the conclusion that so called 'Muslim terrorists' were behind them.

Many such blasts like Ajmer, Makkah Masjid, Malegaon, Sumjhauta Expresss, etc., were also attributed to Indian Mujahideen (IM) but it was known only later all these blasts were acts of terrorism by the Sangh Pariwar's clandestine groups that were trained professionally, stated The Revolutionary Democratic Front (RDF), adding that “We must be very careful in such issues.

Each time a blast was attributed to IM, Muslim youth in that particular city were targeted by the police. Hundreds of Muslim youths were arrested and incarcerated for years in jails, it alleged.

The Forum for the Release of Innocent Muslims Imprisoned in the Name of Terrorism also echoed the same view and urged the authorities to probe deeper before coming to a conclusion.

They said that one cannot rule out the involvement of saffron terrorists in the twin blasts which claimed 16 lives including many Muslims in Hyderabad.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Secular Forum (CSF) asked the police to conduct a thorough investigation before drawing conclusions.

In a memorandum sent to Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, CSF general secretary Joseph Dias said that within hours of the blasts, there had been rumours that Pakistan and the IM were behind the blasts. “Now one can expect many Muslim youth to be arrested, something that has not stood up to judicial scrutiny. In the past we have seen umpteen times, after proper investigation, that the Hindutva brigade has also been responsible for such terror attacks,” he said.

Earlier, in the aftermath of the three May and August 2007 blasts in Hyderabad, the Metropolitan Sessions Judge Radha Krishna acquitted all the 21 accused. He said that the prosecution had failed to bring any evidence to prove the charges against them and that the government should refrain from stereotyping the Muslim community and making arrests, unless it was sure of the culprits behind the blasts.

The CSF claimed that legal experts surveying the terrorism cases involving Muslim youths said that the rate of acquittal of Muslim youths in the past had been as high as over 95 per cent, clearly highlighting the bias Muslim youths faced in prosecution. In the case of 70 Muslim youths who were arrested in connection with Makkah Masjid blast and later released by the court, it was perhaps the first time that the government ordered compensation, the CSF said.