Hyderabad: The Friday prayers passed off peacefully in the Old City. Soon after the prayers though, a group of youngsters marched to the historic mosque and tried to take a rally towards Gulzar House. But the police thwarted their attempts as they had not obtained police permission. Mild tension prevailed for a while around the bustling markets with people taking shelter in shops and parking lots.
The police initially found it difficult to navigate in and around the area as a lot of rubble and construction waste is dumped on the roads as the Charminar, with the Pedestrian Project work underway. A team of the Commissioner's Task Force followed the group of youngsters to prevent any untoward incident. Later, DCP (south) Mr V. Satyanarayana spoke to the youth and pacified them. He then took the youngsters to the adjoining Moghalpura area from where the group dispersed.
Around 3 pm, several small rallies from across the Old City and a few more rallies from various other parts of the city were taken out demanding punishment for the criminals who had sexually assaulted and killed the girl child in Kathua, J&K. “We accorded permission for 18 rallies across the Old City. The youngsters wanted to protest,” said DCP (south).
Similar small rallies were taken out from various parts of the city including Begum Bazaar, Abids, Asifnagar, Chandrayangutta, Santoshnagar, Golconda and, Musheerabad. To mark solidarity with the victim's family and show their protest, several shops in Charminar, Jagadish market in Abids, Asifnagar, Kalapather, Chandrayangutta and other areas downed their shutters for most part of the day.
The police had made elaborate security arrangements across the city by deploying teams of Rapid Action Force.
