Hyderabad: Telangana Senior Congress leader Mohammed Ali Shabbir on Thursday said that he had been kept on house arrest by the Telangana Police in an alleged attempt to stop him from visiting the Haj House.
This comes as Congress leaders across the state have been taken into preventive custody or placed under house arrest in view of the planned protest by the party to coincide with the culmination of the decennial state formation celebrations by the Bharat Rashtra Samithi government.
On the last day of the celebrations, chief minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao is set to inaugurate Telangana Martyrs’ Memorial ‘Amara Deepam’ which has come up in front of the state Secretariat on the banks of Hussain Sagar lake in Hyderabad.
Shabbir, alongside other Congress leaders, was invited by the Haj Committee to join the ceremonial send-off of Haj pilgrims at Haj House. However, the police placed him on house arrest.
The Congress leader called the instance ‘a lack of coordination’ between government departments.
“Today, the Haj Committee invited Congress leaders to join the ceremonial send-off of Haj pilgrims at Haj House. Shockingly, Telangana Police placed me under house arrest to stop me from visiting the Haj House. The lack of coordination within government departments is concerning. CM KCR is trying to politicise the Haj camp. It has always been customary for leaders from all political parties to give a customary send-off to Haj pilgrims. Since CM KCR has not visited the Haj House since 2017, he is now preventing all others from meeting the pilgrims to give a ceremonial send-off on their holy journey,” he tweeted.
The Congress leader said that KCR is preventing others from meeting pilgrims as he has not visited the Haj House since 2017.
The Congress party condemned the house arrests. It termed the arrests of party leaders and activists protesting peacefully as the murder of democracy and demanded the Director General of Police unconditionally release them.