With Eidul Azha or Bakrid and main Ganesh Chaturthi procession in Hyderabad falling with a difference of just one day, the administration has pulled out all the stops to make fool proof security arrangements.
While Eid will be celebrated on Saturday and lakhs of animals will be sacrificed on the occasion, the police have tightened the security arrangements in advance. Even as the Eid will be celebrated for three days, the centralised Ganesh procession will be taken out on Sunday.
To ensure there was no laxity in the security Hyderabad police commissioner M Mahinder Reddy along with other senior officials undertook a visit of the procession from Balapur in old city to Hussain Sagar lake and inspected the preparations including the barricading of the roads and covering of mosques and shrines along the road with cloths.
“24,000 police personnel are being deployed to maintain peace and law and order. Thousands of CCTV cameras will also be used to monitor the situation and keep any eye on mischief makers from the control room,” he said.
Special attention is being paid to the clearing of the waste generated by the sacrifice of animals and one lakh plastic covers were being distributed to the households for the purpose. Meanwhile, several incidents of Hindu organisations' workers obstructing the transport of animals for sacrifice on Eid outside Hyderabad and in the districts has worried the cattle traders.
As in many cases police sided with these elements the representatives of the Qureshi community and the MIM president Asaduddin Owaisi protested with the government and police officials and got the animals released.
Meanwhile the Greater Hyderabad Municipal corporation has undertaken massive road repair work to ensure that the vehicles carrying Ganesh idols for immersion move smoothly.
Though the arrangements for the immersion of idols were made at almost dozen lakes in and around the city, the main point will remain Hussainsagar lake where 25000 odd idols were likely to be immersed.