Activists Call For Justice In Macca Masjid Blasts Case

Hyderabad:On the 18th anniversary of the Macca Masjid bomb blast, a group of civil society members, social activists and journalists wrote an open letter to Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy, urging the Telangana Government to take concrete steps toward justice for the victims of the 2007 terror attack.

The blast, which occurred on May 18, 2007, during Friday prayers, killed nine people and injured 58 others. In the aftermath, police opened fire on protestors, resulting in the deaths of five more people.

The letter notes that even after 18 years, justice remains elusive. The National Investigation Agency (NIA) initially filed a charge sheet naming five accused, all of whom were acquitted by a special court in 2018 due to lack of evidence. The NIA did not appeal the acquittal, and when a victim’s family member attempted to do so, the agency reportedly opposed it. The signatories questioned the NIA’s commitment to justice, pointing to the contradiction between the central government’s stated zero-tolerance stance on terrorism and its inaction in this case.

The letter also raised concern over the continued withholding of the V. Bhaskara Rao Commission report, which was constituted to probe the police firing and security lapses. Despite repeated requests, successive state governments have not tabled the report in the Assembly and previous RTI requests to access it were denied.

In their appeal, the signatories made two key demands: that the Telangana government intervene in the appeal filed by a victim’s family member against the acquittals in the case and that the Congress-led government table the V. Bhaskara Rao Commission report in the Assembly without redactions. The letter was signed by 32 people, including retired professors, lawyers, journalists, social workers and activists.