Mecca Masjid blast: Citizens demand Bhaskar Rao Commission report

Hyderabad: Muslim organisations and human rights groups are demanding the government to make the Justice (retd) Bhaskar Rao Commission report public. The Commission was constituted in June 2007 to inquire in to the police excesses, including firing, which claimed five lives. The police had resorted to firing to “quell angry mobs” soon after a blast rocked the Mecca Masjid.

Human rights activists and various political parties and Muslim groups termed the action “unprovoked” and “targeted”. Five persons were killed and a few sustained injuries in the police firing. The demand gains strength in view of the expected judgement of the Mecca Masjid blast case.

Following the outcry over the incident that took place in the vicinity of the Mecca Masjid soon after the blast, the then government had set up a Commission to probe in to the circumstances of and action of the police.

The Commission had submitted its report in October 2010, about three years after it was constituted. Ever since, it has been kept as a confidential document. “The public has a right to know what happened. Hiding something in the closet does not bode well for anyone. What we have learnt is the Commission had justified the police firing, but the government has to come on record,” said Lateef Mohd Khan of Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee.

AIMIM President, Asaduddin Owaisi, had recently demanded that the government place the findings of the Commission in the Assembly. However, the government reportedly fears a public backlash.

Abid Rasool Khan, former Chairperson, Telangana State Minorities Commission, said that he had written a letter in the capacity of the chairperson and sought the report. “There was no reply from the government. I am now trying to get it through the court. The community wants to know what action provoked the police to firing, and if the action was justified,” he said.

Among those killed in the police firing was an intermediate student who was on his way to hand over a lunch box to his father, a 35-year-old man who had gone to bring medicines for his mother and a 30-year-old man who went out to film the happenings after the blast.

The police had told the Commission that they had resorted to firing to quell the angry rampaging mobs that had set ablaze a liquor shop and were on the verge of setting fire to a fuel station at Moghalpura. The firing was resorted to after efforts of the police to quell the violence, started in the aftermath of attack, using water cannon and tear gas failed.

However, there were allegations against the police stating that a few officials panicked and ordered firing to ‘send a strong message’ and adhering to the ‘golden hour’ principal adopted to contain communal violence.