AP on high alert on 4th anniversary of Mecca Masjid blast

Hyderabad, May 17: Ahead of the fourth anniversary of the Mecca Masjid bomb blast on Wednesday, May 18, the Hyderabad Police have sounded a high alert and beefed up security in the city. But police say that there is no specific intelligence input in terms of any possible security threat.

Security has been tightened in view of the Mecca Masjid blast anniversary, particularly in Old City and surrounding areas. Police personnel have intensified patrolling in these areas, they said.

This time we don't expect any trouble or problem as extremist Viqaruddin Ahmed alias Viqar and his associates, who killed policemen are already behind bars, a senior police officer told PTI, adding that the Hyderabad Police were on high alert for the past two days.

Viqar and his associates had targeted policemen on duty on two consecutive anniversaries of the Mecca Masjid blast by allegedly killing two cops and injuring two others, since December 2008. They held the Sangh Parivar leaders responsible for the 2007 Mecca Masjid blast and therefore avenged for killings of Muslims, who died in police firing after the blast in Mecca Masjid.

Terror operative and founder of militant outfit Tahreek Galba-e-Islam (TGI) Viqaruddin Ahmed and his six associates were finally arrested in July last year and put in judicial custody.

A cell phone-controlled pipe bomb went off at the historic Mecca Masjid during the Friday prayers on May 18, 2007, killing nine people, while five protesters died in police firing after the blast.

PTI