By Mohammed Siddique, TwoCircles.net,
Hyderabad : Hyderabad is in a state of grief and sorrow in memory of those 43 people, several of them women and children who fell victims to the ghastly terrorist act of bomb blasts at two crowded public places exactly this day a year ago.
The bombs had exploded in Laserium of Lumbini Park opposite state secretariat and at Gokul Chat in the busy commercial hub of Hyderabad leaving 60 others grievously injured.
Though no official program was organized either at the Lumbini Park or Gokul Chat in memory of the victims, some non governmental organizations and the political parties have planned their separate meetings.
While a candle light vigil by the citizens has been planned later this evening by the AP Civil Liberties Monitoring Committee, the BJP has also organized a memorial meeting at the Gokul Chat bhandar which will be addressed by the senior BJP leader. Bajrang Dal has already taken out a procession to condemn the incident.
Both the targets of the terrorists are attacking a large number of visitors who are paying floral tributes to the victims. However the look of both the places has changed drastically over the last one year. Both the places now have strict security and visitors are being allowed only after frisking and have to pass through metal detector door frame.
“We have made fool proof security because we can not take chances now. We had not imagined even in our dream that our bhandar will become a target of terrorists”, said Mukund Das of Gokul Chat.
A year is a long time but it has not healed the wounds of the city, specially those who lost their near and dear ones.
For two widowed sister Ayesha Sultana and Zainab Begum in Masab Tank, who lost the entire family of their brother and for Sujata and Mohan Reddy in Brindavn colony in another end of the city, the memories of dark Saturday are as fresh as it was yesterday.
Like these two households, the families of 21 year old Pratiyusha, 26 year old Badhshah, teenagers Mohammed Rizwan Ali and Yahya Abdul Quader, and Gokul Chat worker Kishan Goud are enveloped by sense of irrepairable loss. While the kin of departed soul are mourning them, those survived are also facing an uncertain and bleak future.
G Sadasvi Reddy and P Badshah, though coming from different religious backgrounds were very closed friends. Both studied engineering in Anwarul Uloom college and just when their lives were taking a turn for the good, their dreams were brutally shattered. Both of them are now lying on beds in their homes, two kms away from each other.
On that fateful evening, the two friends ran in to each other at Kothi when Reddy was returning home from duty and Badshah was out shopping with his mother. Reddy was working as a design engineering in electric transformer manufacturing company and Badshah had just returned from Australia after joining a company as telecom engineer for salary of Rs 1.5 lakh per month. They wanted to enjoy and headed for Gokul Chat.
The bomb which exploded around 7-30 left Sadashiv Reddy brain damaged and his whole body paralysed. While Badshah’s brain remained safe, his lower body was paralysed as the iron balls and bolts in the bomb damaged his spinal cord.
“My brother is now worse than a three year old baby. The baby will at least ask for food if he feels hungry but my brother can not utter a single word. We are well waiting when will he start speaking and walking”, says his elder brother Srinivas Reddy. As splinters of the bomb got embedded in his brain , chest stomach and other parts of the body and doctors found it impossible to remove them, there was little hope of any improvement in his condition.
Family of Badshah is feeling equally helpless and frustrated. Badshah, whose world came down crashing is also very angry and refuses to see any visitors including reporters. “What is there to talk. Is there any hope for my recovery”, he shouts.
His father, a lecturer in a local college is reduced to tears. “Now all my hopes are pinned on my younger son Shahed who has completed his engineering”.
Both the families are unhappy that the government did not extend any help to them for the treatment. “They gave Rs 20,000 and took care of free treatment for five months in a hospital but after discharged they did nothing. My son needs special treatment which is available only abroad”, says Badhshah’s father.
Ayesha and Zainab, in their fifties are inconsolable. “What if left for us in this world. We have lost the purpose of our life. My dear brother, who was like father to us, died. His wife and two young sons were snatched away. Why they (terrorists) don’t kill us”, asks a hysterical Ayesha. As both the women have lost their husbands few years ago, there is no body to take care of them and their health was also deteriorating. The government officials are still debating on the rules whether the exgratia amount of Rs 5 lakh can be given to the sisters or not as no member of the family as has survived.
Naturally the brunt of the anger of these victims is directed at the perpetrators. “I don’t know who did. Whether it is Hindu or a Muslim, they should be severely punished”, says Ayesha.
But Srinivas Reddy is more philosophical. “You have destroyed so many families, taken so many lives and left so many paralysed. At least now put an end to it. You are not going to gain any thing but people like us have lost much more”, he tells the perpetrators.
But who are the perpetrators? Whose handiwork these blasts were? Even today the Hyderabad police does not have any reply. The city police commissioner B Prasad Rao only says, “the case is under investigation and we are trying to cull out clues”.