Hyderabad parks closed, CCTV cameras to be installed

All parks in the city — particularly prominent ones which are visited by hundreds of tourists —  have been asked to shut down by the police until working CCTV cameras are installed.

Since Thursday’s twin blasts at Dilsukhnagar which killed 17  people, prominent  parks in the state capital — KBR, Lumbini, NTR Gardens, Indira Park  and  others have been closed. The order came from city police commissioners  Anurag Sharma  and  D Tirumala Rao on  Saturday after the police came under fire for not taking adequate steps to ensure that CCTV cameras were in working condition.

Police found that all the four  CCTVs set up  after the 2007  blasts  which killed  11 persons and maimed dozens at the Lumbini Park were not working.

Planting a bomb at four parks under the city municipal administration could be a cakewalk for militants as none of the 12 CCTV cameras in the parks were not working.

Militants earlier had planted bombs in parks across the country, including the Central Park in New Delhi, killing scores of people in 2008. The  Police commissioner issued a notice to all shopping malls, cinema halls and also major temples to set up CCTV cameras to monitor movement of visitors within 15 days and defaulters  would face stern action including cancellation of licenses.

Meanwhile , the investigative agencies say that there were over 100 sleeper jihadi cells including 10 odd striking cells in  and around the city. On a tip off, about sleeper cells, the IB and NIA teams visited several villages and towns in Nalgonda, Nizamabad and Medak.

Although the blasts were conspired by terrorists from outside and also across the state, its execution was done by local teams, they said adding that “We are interrogating nearly 40 to 50 persons but no arrests have been made”.
The forensic labs have concluded in their preliminary report to the Home Ministry that  the IEDs were assembled near the blast site about an hour  before the blasts.

The report said that 700  grams of Ammonium nitrate was mixed with an inflammatory oil and stuck with gelatin sticks as detonators. It was fixed with a digital timer circuit. The Ammonium nitrate compound was then placed in steel tiffin boxes and tied with  copper wire.

Later they were inserted into a larger aluminium round or square boxes  and the empty place between  the tiffin box and aluminium outer box was filled with glasses, metal pieces and nails. Later, the aluminium box were  covered with a flexi fabric bag.  and then they were kept in a Rexene handbag and tied to the back stand of an old bicycle  with jute thread to look like  a material bought from a hardware shop. Even the bicycle was assembled ones with handle, back seats, chassis and tyres from different units.