Hyderabad police biased against Muslims: Owaisi

Hyderabad member of Lok Sabha and Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen president Asaduddin Owaisi has demanded a high level inquiry into the communal riots in Hyderabad over the last five days, and charged the police with behaving in a partial and biased manner.

Asad Owaisi, who returned from a visit to France along with a Parliamentary delegation said on Wednesday that though the minority community had suffered huge losses in the violence, police had taken one sided action and detained 170 youth of the community. "They have been kept in different police stations," he alleged.

If the government does not stop the police from this discrimination and bias, the MIM will be forced to protest, he said.

Owaisi wondered how the police permitted Bajrang Dal to take out rallies on Tuesday when situation was highly surcharged. "It is matter of shame for the police," he said.

Appealing to the people of all communities of Hyderabad to help in restoring and strengthening peace, he said, "It is the poor people who suffer the most if peace is not restored."

Owaisi said that after three days of curfew, the poor families of daily wager earners were on the verge of starvation. "I urge the government to provide assistance to such families and organise for free distribution of food grains. I have spoken to Hyderabad district collector about it," he said.

Alleging that the police was breaking into the house late in the night to make arrests, he asked the people to collectively protest against such acts. "This shows the communal bias of the police force," he said.

Owaisi ridiculed the latest shoot-at-sight orders of the police, wondering why police had kept quiet when innocent people were being attacked, and places of worship were being burnt and damaged.

Referring to the allegations of Congress MP Madhu Yashki and other leaders that there was a conspiracy behind these incidents and outsiders were involved in it, Owaisi demanded a probe at a high level to bring out the truth. 

He strongly criticised the Telugu news channels for carrying highly provocative reports to create hatred against the Muslims.