K Chandrasekhar Rao commission is coming under pressure to release the report of Bhaskara Rao commission which had probed the police firing on the people outside Hyderabad’s Mecca masjid following a bomb blast in 2007.
The firing with automatic weapons on the protesting worshippers had left five people dead and scores of others injured on May 18, 2007. Though the commission had submitted its report to the Government long ago it was yet to be made public.
The issue has come into sharp focus with the Government rejecting a query under Right to Information Act filed by a Hyderabad-based activist SQ Masood seeking the copy of the report. The activist had asked for the report for academic purpose but the Government refused to part with it.
When the activist challenged it before the Chief Information Commissioner the State Government officials failed to turn up for the hearing of the case by CIC despite a notice being issued to the General administration department.
Now Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) has come out strongly demanding that the report be tabled in the current session of Telangana legislative Assembly.
“What is the need of the Government to treat it as an official secret,” asked the MIM president and Hyderabad member of Parliament Asaduddin Owaisi. He urged the government to table the commission's report as well as the Action Taken Report on January 17 when the Assembly session resumes after the festival holiday. Asad also vent his frustration over the silence of the Government through Twitter. “Why is it being kept in wraps as some sort of State secret,” he wondered.
The State was under Congress rule when the bomb blast in the Mecca Masjid and subsequent police firing outside the mosque took place in May 18, 2007. Pointing out that the TRS was not in power at the time of the incident Owaisi said that the purpose of the setting up the commission would fail if people are not informed about the conclusions of the commission.
SQ Masood had sent the RTI query to the Chief Minister's office in September which was later forwarded to the Home Department and from there to the GAD.
In its reply in November to SQ Masood the secretary GAD wrote "I am to inform that the information sought has to be placed before both the Houses of state legislature, hence it is not feasible to furnish the same, in terms of the section 8 (1) (c) of the RTI Act, 2005,".
Meanwhile Asaduddin Owaisi has also welcomed the decision of the government of Saudi Arabia to increase the quota of Indian Haj pilgrims to 1.7 lakhs from 1.3 lakhs. But he reiterated his demand that the Indian government should scrap the Haj subsidy of Rs 690 crore. "Allot it to girls education", he tweeted.