On Muharram 10: 200 processions in Hyderabad

HYDERABAD: More than 200 mourning processions will be carried out in Hyderabad on Muharram 10. A deployment of over 5,000 personnel, including 4,000 policemen and 700 Rangers personnel, besides scouts and volunteers has been announced for the daylong security.

The numbers, provided by the district police, are double than the deployment of Muharram 10 in 2015. “This year, the security alert for Hyderabad besides some other cities of Sindh is very high,” Hyderabad Commissioner Qazi Shahid Pervez told The Express Tribune.

The central procession, organised by Anjuman-i-Imam Hyderi, will start from Karbala Dadan Shah in the morning and will culminate at Qadam Gah Hazrat Ali around 5pm. Over 50 streets and roads intersecting this one-kilometre route have been sealed with barbed wires. Only one entry point has been kept at Dadan Shah and one exit point at Qadam Gah. Mourners will have to pass through walkthrough gates at the entrance.

The police have declared 17 of these processions as ‘very sensitive’ and 18 others as ‘sensitive’. Some 77 majalis of Sham-e-Ghareeban will also take place on the day. Among them, four places have been classified as ‘very sensitive’ and 12 as ‘sensitive’.

According to the police spokesperson, Mazhar Shani, two separate control rooms will monitor the processions. One of them has been working at the Hyderabad SSP’s office since the beginning of Muharram while the other is in the City police station, in whose jurisdiction the central procession will be taken out on Muharram 10.

Four watchtowers, in which personnel have been equipped with telescopes and night-vision devices, have also been set up at different locations. A police official said that 12 closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras will monitor the main procession.

In a recent press conference in Hyderabad, Sindh IG AD Khawaja said that Hyderabad is among the six districts in Sindh where the threat alert is high. Karachi, Sukkur, Shikarpur, Khairpur and Jacobabad are the five other cities.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 11^th, 2016.