IM man Bhatkal behind Hyderabad blast, claims NIA

• ‘CCTV footage will prove us right’

 

Hyderabad, 28 Feb 2013 (DHNS): NIA’s preliminary report to the Home Ministry has raised strong suspicions that the IM operating commander Yasin Bhatkal was present at the site of the explosion that rocked Dilsukhnagar on February 21.

 

They also say Bhatkal personally brought the second bicycle to Venkatadri theatre. “The blurred images on the CCTV   footage would prove us right,” says a senior official.

 

Investigators said while three persons prepared and planted the bicycle bombs, two others worked as support for identifying location and finding escape route.

 

Police are incredulous about Bhatkal’s presence in Hyderabad to direct the blasts.

 

“ He was the person who left the  bicycle  near  the  bus shelter of  bus route no  -107  near Venkatadri  theatre,” said  a senior official.

 

Meanwhile, the condition of   two injured persons in the blasts appears to be very critical. Doctors  said P Panduranga Reddy , 21, an engineering student  from Nalgonda  and    Ravi Kumar, a 25 year old MBA  graduate from  Hyderabad city, have been in coma  for the last five days.

 

The two had been hit by the blast while waiting at the bus shelter. Panduranga Reddy will have to cope with an amputated leg and a blinded eye when he emerges from the unconsciousness.“His body was full of ammonium nitrate and had to be kept under sterilization for whole two days,” said doctors at the Yashoda hospital.

 

Ravi Kumar’s condition seems even worse. The youngster awaits more than three surgeries.“His body is completely infected by the coat of chemicals and shrapnel. We are waiting for the infection to clear. He may require more than three surgeries,” doctors said.

 

The state government has dispersed ex gratia to 13 of the 17 dead. In three of the four pending cases, the relatives in Hyderabad has to be identified, while the family of the fourth, 25-year-old Chogaram Kaloji from Bhinmal tehsil in Jalore district of Rajasthan, who died at the hospital later, had been notified. The state government, aiming to bolster security in Hyderabad, has sanctioned a proposal to install 3,500 CCTV cameras in the city at a cost of Rs 450 crore, in addition to 300 plus existing CCTVs.

 

City police has also directed shopping malls, cinema halls, temples, parks and tourist spots to install CCTV cameras in fifteen days, failing which they may have to lose their license to operate.