The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Travails of blast survivors

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 24, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Travails of blast survivors

Staff Reporter

The horror of the happenings at Mecca Masjid lives on even as the old city recuperates

Hyderabad: It is the `dua' that saved their lives. Eight-year-old Altaf Khan was feeling hungry and wanted to return home soon after the `namaz-e-Juma' at Mecca Masjid on Friday. But his elder brother Shahbaz Khan was insistent that they go only after the `dua'. The duo moved a few rows ahead and then the bomb went off.

"Agar hum houz ke pas hi rahte to shayd mar jaate" (if we were near the pond, we would have probably been killed), they recall from their hospital beds in the Owaisi Hospital and Research Centre. Both the boys have suffered severe leg injuries.

Mohd. Ibrahim (13) also offers prayers regularly at Mecca Masjid on Fridays. He studies at a Madrasa in Shalibanda. On May 18, along with his friends, he came to the Masjid. While others moved into the main hall, he stayed back near the houz and fell a prey to the blast. "His right leg is badly damaged", says his father Mukhtiyar.

Lending a helping hand is a noble gesture. But this very act landed Abdul Akhtar in trouble. The teenager was going towards Moghalpura when a man fell to police bullets right in front of him. Along with another youth, Akhtar lifted the bleeding man when he himself received a shot in the right leg. "Why was I shot when I was helping another person", asks Akhtar through the prism of tears.

Mohd Younus (26) was going to his in-laws house to see his ailing child when a bullet hit him in the pelvic region. Sensing trouble, he took a detour and was engaging an auto when police shot him from Pista House.

A kind of videotape of horror run through their minds as the victims recall the events of May 18. Gun shots, people running for cover and wailing sirens of ambulances.

Six days after the bomb blast, they couldn't shake off the dreadful happenings. Most of the injured in the bomb blast and subsequent police firing are recuperating at the Owaisi Hospital.

A total of 29 persons were admitted here. Of them 15 have been discharged so far.

Three persons died on Friday soon after they were shifted here, while eight died in the Asra Hospital. The hospital has so far performed 18 minor and major surgeries.

"Most of the victims of firing are injured in the critical areas above the waist", said Mazharuddin Ali Khan, Medical Superintendent, Owaisi Hospital.

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