By IANS
Hyderabad : As Hyderabad shut down Monday to protest the horrific terror bombings that killed 42 people two days ago, hoax bomb calls kept people and security agencies on the edge.
Three hoax calls as well as two bomb scares sparked by unclaimed bags were reported, triggering panic. One such call was made to the Andhra Pradesh state secretariat, the seat of the government.
The entire complex – housing the offices of the chief minister and his cabinet colleagues – was evacuated while the police complete with sniffer dogs conducted a thorough check. But no explosives were found.
The Lumbini Park, a stone’s throw away from the secretariat on the banks of the Hussain Sagar Lake, was one of the sites of the twin blasts Saturday.
The response to the statewide shutdown, called by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in protest against the terror attacks, was almost total in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad.
Only a few buses were seen on the roads while schools, shops and business establishments, banks, cinema theatres remained closed.
It also affected life throughout Telangana region of northern Andhra Pradesh. But the response was lukewarm in Rayalaseema and the coastal regions of Andhra Pradesh, according to information reaching the state capital.
State-run buses did not ply in parts of the state while private educational institutions declared a holiday. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) extended support to the strike.
BJP workers gathered in different parts of Hyderabad and other cities and towns, especially in Telangana, to enforce the shutdown. They did not allow buses to come out of depots and staged noisy demonstrations.
Sporadic incidents of stone throwing on buses were reported from parts of Telangana. BJP workers held demonstrations to protest government’s failure to curb terrorist activities and set afire effigies of Pakistan’s Inter services Intelligence (ISI), which has been blamed for the terror attacks by the state’s Home Minister K. Jana Reddy.
BJP state president Bandaru Dattatreya, national secretary Indrasena Reddy and other leaders were arrested when they staged a protest outside the state secretariat.
As the shutdown got underway, the office of the director of medical and health services at Koti area of the city received a bomb threat. The office is located near Gokul Chat, an eatery where a powerful bomb killed 32 people Saturday.
Paradise Hotel, a popular food joint in Hyderabad’s twin city Secunderabad, also received a bomb threat. It turned out to be a hoax.
Two unclaimed bags near the Global Hospital in the busy Lakdi Ka Pul neighbourhood and a bus stand in Secunderabad area created a scare. People in the vicinity heaved a sigh of relief when the bomb disposal squad declared after a thorough check that they were harmless objects.
Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy appealed to people not to believe rumours and to cooperate with the police.
Jana Reddy said investigations were on to identify those who made the hoax calls.
After the May 18 blast at the historic Mecca Masjid here, which had claimed nine lives, the city had received dozens of such calls.
Two days before Saturday’s blasts, a few institutions here had received bomb threats. Police were probing if those calls were part of a diversionary tactic.
Meanwhile, police said they would not allow cinema theatres without metal detector facilities to run the shows.
Only five to seven out of about 100 theatres in the city have metal detectors to check visitors.
Police have also directed shopping complexes to immediately install metal detectors to screen visitors. Officials said this was necessary to prevent another tragedy.
This IT hub is still trying to recover from the shock of the worst ever terror attack in the southern state.
Refusing to bow down to terrorism, a large number of citizens took part in a candle light demonstration at Lumbini Park Sunday night.
Rising above politics, leaders of all political parties participated in a peace meeting on Monday. Led by the chief minister, the leaders paid tributes to the victims and declared that they would not bow down to terrorism.
Rajasekhra Reddy reiterated that blasts were part of an international conspiracy to destabilise India, especially cities like Hyderabad which were on the path of economic progress.
Earlier, addressing a meeting organised by youth Congress, the chief minister said his government was determined to defeat terrorism and announced that police would be provided sophisticated arms and equipment necessary to deal with the terrorist threat.
Employees of the state secretariat also held a peace meeting and paid tributes to blast victims. Peace meetings and rallies were also held in some other parts of the state.
Leader of opposition and president of Telugu Desam Party N. Chandrababu Naidu met state governor N.D. Tiwari. Alleging that the Congress government had utterly failed to protect citizens, he urged him to take necessary steps in this regard.
Talking to newsmen, Naidu said Rajasekhara Reddy had no moral right to continue in office after failing to prevent blasts despite intelligence warnings in the wake of the May 18 blast at Mecca Masjid.
Meanwhile, police have picked up 10 people including a few employees of Gokul Chat for questioning. They include three suspects who reportedly provided iron balls for making the bombs.
In Nagpur in neighbouring Maharashtra, Sohail, owner of Amin Explosives, was taken into custody for questioning.
Police alleged that the Neogel 90 used in the unexploded bomb recovered from a cinema theatre after the blasts was made by his company.
Police suspect the involvement of the Bangladesh-based Harkat ul Jihadi Islami (HuJI) in the terror bombings.