Friday prayers passed off peacefully as the security was tightened in Hyderabad on the eve of the seventh anniversary of bomb blast in historic Mecca Masjid. In all, 14 people were killed in the bomb blast and subsequent police firing after the Friday prayers on May 18, 2007.
Senior police officials said that elaborate arrangements were made and security was tightened specially in the communally sensitive areas of the old city to check any untoward incident on the occasion of the anniversary.
The Central Bureau of Investigation and the National Investigation Agency have arrested several members of Abhinav Bharat, a right wing Hindu terrorist organisation as well as the RSS in connection of the blast in the Mecca Masjid. They include lokesh Sharma, Devender Gupta, Rajindar Choudhary, Swamy Aseemanand and others.
Police officials recalled that two policemen were killed in similar attacks on the occasion of blast anniversaries in 2009 and 2010. Though the perpetrator of those attacks Viqar Ahmad was arrested by the police, the police were not taking any chances. Officials said that each picket of the police has eight personnel and they have been allowed to retaliate in case of any attack on them.
Viqar had told the police that he carried out the attacks and killed two policemen in retaliation to the police firing when Muslims were protesting soon after the blast in the mosque.
According to the chargesheet filed by the CBI in the court, Sunil Joshi, another RSS activist was the main brain behind the bomb blast and he undertook reconnaissance of Mecca Masjid in early 2007 and later used the services of Rajindar Choudhary and Tejaram Parmar to plant the bomb in the court yards of the mosque.
The CBI said Sunil Joshi, who had also arranged 11 sim cards and mobile phones to be used in carrying out the blast, was later killed in Devas Madhya Pradesh.
The investigations have also revealed that Sunil Joshi was also in touch with Pragya Thakur who is in jail in connection with the bomb blast in Malegaon (Maharashtra).