It all began with the Muharram procession which started from Dabeerpura in Old City and passed through Charminar, Purani Haveli and Darulshifa, before culminating at Chaderghat on Sunday. The procession was taken out in violation of the State High Court order, and since then, AIMIM and its chief have gone silent.
The Telangana State High Court has directed the Hyderabad Police Commissioner to take necessary action if its orders are violated. The Hyderabad City Police had earlier given permission to take out the procession on a van and passed strict instructions to discourage people from gathering along the procession route. However, thousands turned up, without wearing masks, along the route disregarding the restricted permission given by the police and COVID norms that are in place across the country. The city police simply regulated and guarded the procession all along without dissuading the participants. Later, the police have claimed that they have filed cases against the violators.
In a similar incident, in January this year, the entire city had come to a grinding halt, when police gave restricted permission for an anti-CAA protest at Dharna Chowk. The City Police slapped cases against those violating permission norms and washed away their hands.
The AIMIM chief is known to take to Twitter seeking clarification from the City Police and Commissioner on several earlier occasions. He tags his tweets to the Telangana CMO and Minister KTR and others in the corridors of power, forcing the police bosses to give explanations via Twitter. But, this time, widespread criticism has been leveled against the AIMIM, City Police and the State Government facilitating the procession in violation of the State High Court directions and the COVID norms. The State High Court while rejecting permission for the processions on the occasion of Muharram and Ganesh festivals observed that “people’s lives matter more than the religious beliefs in the current COVID crisis.”
This raises the pertinent question that does lives of people who have voted for AIMIM since decades really matter to Asad?
