Hyderabad, March 31: Old City eased up a bit on Tuesday, a day after curfew was clamped in 17 police station limits of the communally-sensitive parts of the walled city that witnessed violent clashes. Barring stray incidents, the day passed off peacefully and the usually jampacked streets of the congested Old City wore a deserted look.
An occasional passerby with a curfew pass or the vehicles of the police and media were the only things spotted moving on the main thoroughfares.
The interior roads, however, wore an altogether different look.
The hustle and bustle at the Charminar and the adjoining Laad Bazar was missing. In a bylane at Shalibanda, which usually is crammed with moving vehicles, children and youngsters were seen playing cricket.
With police pickets at all the sensitive parts and checkposts on the roads leading to the Old City, people were not allowed to move around unless they had passes, putting in trouble those who had to attend urgent work. However, those with genuine reasons like visiting hospitals were allowed without passes but they had to walk all the way to their destinations.
Meawnhile, rumours flew thick and fast about sporadic incidents of violence at various parts of the Old City.
“People tried to gather at some places but we dispersed them. There was no untoward incident in the curfew-bound areas,’’ a senior police official told the Expresso. Police vehicles, including those of Rapid Action Force and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) made rounds in the localities and prevented people from venturing out.
Daily wage earners and petty vendors were the worst-hit by the curfew.
An eight-member family from Parigi in Ranga Reddy district, carrying their belongings in sacks on their backs, were seen pleading with the police to allow them to go out of the troubled area.
“We came to work at a newly-constructed petrol filling station at Shalibanda.
We had a horrific time on Tuesday and with curfew imposed, we lost our work. We want to go back to our place,” Venkataiah, a daily wager said.
Curfew passes available at all DCP offices
Police said curfew passes, to move in curfew-bound areas, would be issued at the offices of all the Deputy Commissioners of Police (DCP), Special Branch office at Purani Haveli, Main Police Control Room opposite Public Gardens and at the offices of the Assistant Commissioners of Police of Abids, Goshamahal and Asifnagar.
The passes would be issued between 8 a.m to 10 a.m and 4 p.m to 7 p.m, Joint Commissioner of Police (Special Branch) R S Praveen Kumar said.
Police also laid down certain conditions for obtaining the passes.
Persons who want to take curfew passes should be either residents or working in the areas falling under the above eight police station limits where curfew was imposed today.
They should possess valid identity cards or residential proof and display whenever asked by the police.
Every organisation should forward a formal letter with the names and designation of their employees to whom curfew passes should be issued.
Any query regarding curfew passes can be had on telephone number, 1090.
Rally stalls traffic for hours
Traffic came to a standstill for hours together at several places in the twin cities on Wednesday due to a massive rally taken out by the Viswa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal on the occasion of Hanuman Jayanti. With the rally turning violent, business establishments, schools, ATM centres, banks and cinemas down shutters voluntarily at many places.
Over 10,000 saffron activists and devotees of Hanuman participated in the rally from Gowliguda Ram Mandir to Hanuman temple, Tadband covering Putil Bowli, Koti, Andhra Bank crossroads, Women’s College, Kachiguda crossroads, Veer Savarakar Statue, YMCA, Narayanaguda crossroads, RTC crossroads, Musheerabad, Kavadiguda, Bata, Ramgopalpet, Paradise, New Bowenpally and Diamond Point. Cops had a tough time controlling the traffic, as snarls were witnessed at almost every junction that the long-winding procession had touched.
“The regular traffic jams clear out in a few minutes. But this one took frustratingly long to clear away,” a motorist stuck in the traffic commented.
Vehicles were stranded for over two hours at the busy Koti, Kachiguda, RTC crossroads, Narayanaguda junction and on the RP road in Secunderabad. Efforts by the police to ease the situation by diverting the vehicles through bylanes yielded little results.
The road leading to Gandhi Hospital was blocked from Musheerabad police station to Padmarao Nagar crossroads when the rally turned violent at the place. The barricades set up by the police on the road further inconvenienced students and others who wanted to go to Gandhi Hospital. At Bata and Ramgopalpet, angry motorists began abusing policemen for not allowing an ambulance carrying a patient to move into barricaded area forcing the cops to quickly pull out the barricade and allow the ambulance to move through.
–Agencies