Hyd terror: CM admits Muslim youth wrongly accused

The Andhra Pradesh government has for the first time admitted that suspecting Muslims in Mecca Masjid blast case was a mistake as the terror attack was handiwork of 'Hindu militants'. It has also promised to extend financial assistance to the Muslim youth who were falsely implicated in the case.  

Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy, addressing a public meeting in Barkas area of Hyderabad as part of his Rachabanda program on Wednesday, said the blast was carried out with the intention of creating communal trouble and spreading hatred among different communities.

"The CBI investigations which the state government had ordered soon after the blast have unearthed the involvement of communal forces and Hindu militants in the blast," he said.

The blast in the historic Mecca Masjid on May 18, 2007 had killed six and another nine people died in subsequent police firing on protestors.

The Hyderabad police had arrested about 100 Muslim youth suspecting their involvement in the blast.

Though the involvement of Hindu fundamentalist organisations in the blast was established by the CBI last year the arrests of RSS pracharak Devender Gupta and Lokesh Sharma by the Rajasthan police, but it is first time that the state chief minister spoke on the issue.  The prime accused and another RSS pracharak Aseemanand was also arrested in December and he too confessed his involvement.

Reddy regretted that cases were booked against Muslim youth after the blast. He promised that all such cases will be withdrawn and financial help will be extended to them.

Earlier Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi had urged the chief minister that the state should help all the youth who were falsely booked and arrested after the blast. "They were subjected to inhuman torture and given electric shocks," he said.

The chief minister also announced many other sops for the Muslim minority and development of the old city.